TORCHWOOD Medusa
by Mac7511
Summary: Torchwood adventure just to tide you over until Autumn 2007. All comments welcome. New chapter just added.
1. Chapter 1

**Medusa**

**Chapter 1**

Friday Night.

It was a scene like the end of the world, to Owen it seemed like the end of the world as how he imagined it as a child, as the crest of a wave advanced towards him. Caught in it's trough, like a rabbit caught in a headlights, he waited. Struggling to keep his head above water, he waited. Spitting out a mouthful of salt-water, he waited. Owen Harper was always calm, rational, when analysing some inhuman corpse on the hub's autopsy table, dissecting some weird alien invertebrate, or figuring out Gwen . Tonight, he was irrational, confronted by an primeval fear, that had haunted him since a child. Stay alive, his mind told him. His body and will told him otherwise.

A fear of drowning.

A fear of dying.

Thunder cracked from above, the boom echoed across the Bristol Channel's ravaged waters, which storm force winds whipped into an angry frenzy. Around them was the slowly sinking burning wreckage of the Navy Helicopter.

Stay alive Jamie! A voice screamed inside his head. Lt Commander Jamie MacKenzie gasped deep breaths, the salt water stinging in his eyes. His mind was trying to comprehend what had just happened just minutes before. He stopped, his legs kicking frantically to give himself a few vital moments. He ripped at his combat uniform's shoulder pocket; UNIT had equipped him with everything, well nearly. Almost instantly, a bright white light pulsed every two seconds, at the same time a small but very powerful radio beacon started sending an immediate distress signal with a GPS coordinates. He rested momentarily to take his bearings in this cold and grey watery hell. He quickly scanned round the ever moving sea-scape. There. His hopes momentarily raised. He caught sight of a figure struggling in the water. A long deep deliberate breath, and he propelled himself forward in the water

Shit! The figure was struggling to keep their head above water, in the storm. For a few moments they were winning. Then they went under. Fuck! Jamie dived underneath the sea's dark surface into the even darker sub-surface. Where are they? He kept swimming in their general direction. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, he counted, his lungs bursting with a screaming fire. A lightning flash from above, illuminated the sea. There!

Twenty feet in front, and ten feet below, a figure lay silently floating, suspended almost serenely, long hair trailing above. Jamie's legs kicked more powerful strokes, as he found the extra energy to carry on.

Owen coughed out more sea-water. He looked up at the sky, nothing but rolling low storm clouds. The next wave would finish him of that he was certain. Then an muscular arm wrapped itself under his right arm, and supported his neck. "You pick a fine time to go for a swim lad!" A rough Northern Irish accent shouted, manhandling him backwards through the water.

The fear of dying became a distant memory.

Long dark flowing hair, she was struggling, her overcoat was dragging her down. It was Toshiko, the petite Japanese science geek, not Sam, and definitely not Gwen. She was still clutching that scanner thing that seemed to be an extension of her right hand. A momentarily flash of anger burst through his mind, as Jamie removed her coat, his lungs screaming for air. If it wasn't for her, we'd be what…

Dead?

Vaporized?

Jamie pointed upwards, Toshiko nodded, and swift kicks propelled her upwards.

Moments later, an explosion of water announced their presence. Jamie took deep breath's, whilst Toshiko's was more short, and panicky. She was still holding that scanner. "You're ok Tosh, just concentrate on breathing, I'll keep you afloat!" The bright flashing light of the beacon, shone into her eyes, there was real fear in them. She nodded. "Where are they?" She asked shivering.

Jamie looked around. Desperately looking for answers. I don't know, a small voice from inside his mind answered.

Owen saw the pulsing light, coming towards then. The human mountain, as Tosh nicknamed him, or Warrant Officer Travers seemed focused, fixed on swimming towards it. The only sound his breathing. "You seen any of the others?"

No reply, only deeper fixed breath. Becoming increasingly irritated, Owen shouted. "Look action man, my team was back there!"

Travers briefly turned his head around. "So was mine!" He shouted.

Annoyingly there was no wreckage now, no flotsam, no life-jackets. Jamie looked around, the sea was still rolling, not as bad minutes earlier. He felt his strength weakening, the cold sapping his own lifeforce. Rationally he weighed up his and Toshiko's chances, time of year, the coldness of water, the wind chill factor, and the shock. The same as me having a hot date with Evangeline Lilly – little or none. He briefly smiled to reassure a staring Toshiko, they floated together.

The momentarily piece of silence was broken, by two voices having a who can shout louder contest, an South London accent, and an Northern Irish one. That annoying tit Owen, and the ever reliable Travers, that left.

Lt Colonel Josh Armitage, the team-leader. Flight Lieutenant Sam Makler, the recent addition to the team, and two others. Captain Jack Harkness, the DI-75 file on him and torchwood was larger than Bin Laden, and Gwen Cooper. The feeling of warmth within Jamie was brief, a coldness shot up his spine. They where…

Gone – vanished without a trace.

He looked around the survivors. In the corner of his eye, just above the horizon, there was a pin-prick of light growing larger. Rescue, they'd made it.

"Tell me something Captain!" Owen spat, his tone venomous.

"Lt Commander" Travers corrected him, Jamie knew Travers well, he'd snap Owen's spine in a heartbeat.

"How the fuck!" Owen continued unabashed.

"Does a twelve thousand tonne world war two aircraft carrier missing for seventy years, reappear and disappear?"

Three pairs of eyes stared at him, as the sound of the rescue helicopter's rotor blades drew themselves closer. Travers' concerned look, Toshiko's scared look, and the anger of Owen all bored in on him.

"God I wish I knew!"

The mother of all head-aches hit him, as the momentary bright light pulsed impossibility white faded. He had had some mother's of head-aches in his life-time, this was unreal. He blinked his eyes rapidly, as his focus came back. Captain Jack Harkness slowly raised his head from the steel of the hanger-deck. That was unusually warm to the touch. There was an odour, not unlike ozone after a lightning storm.

Except that it felt like this time he had been hit by lightning.

He breathed deeply, then slowly inch by inch, he got up. The head-ache and dizziness did not subside. All around him, human shaped figures started to move about, writhe and groan.

If you can feel the pain, then you know you are alive, somebody told me that once, in another time, in another place. Jack put a hand on the wall. He jolted back with a sharp pain. The structure was painfully hot. The glowing at the end of the hanger deck from the strange device in the chamber started to fade, and in the dark, the nightmarish shadows of some of HMS Medusa's crew blended into the ship's structure, in charred blackened horrible twisted shapes, their faces etched clearly in pain, and terror. He, Gwen, Armitage, and Sam had uncovered the horror. Ordinary GI's, ordinary sailors, and some civilians, from an era long past, Jack recognised them from the uniforms. Young men, doing grim jobs, it was war you expected to die, just not to have yourself fused into a warship's super-structure. Gwen wrenched herself away from the horror, moments later there was the sound of liquid hitting the surface, as she was vomited. Sam on the other hand, examined them with a grim fascination.

Then things started to get exciting, which usually happened in Torchwood, very quickly. The machine in the chamber switched itself on, and time started to slow down. He, Gwen, and Armitage drew their weapons. Panic ensured, and time stopped. Which reminded him, where was his Webley pistol?

He heard a familiar groan, and walked over in the direction of a pale white Gwen. Holding her stomach, and eyes fixed on Jack, with a familiar expression on her face. Help me out here. Jack, ever the gentlemen, even in these circumstance,s smiled. "Hey – you ok?"

"Just give me a moment!" Gwen replied. Jack turned round. A second later, the sound of somebody's dinner splashed onto the deck.

"Aw those Friday nights in your teenage years Gwen, you remember them?" Jack chided. "That cheap bottle of cider or what-ever you drink, then if you are really lucky, a drunken kiss, and a grope behind the bus shelter…"

"Piss off!" An angry voice retorted.

"That's the spirit. This is one hell of a Friday night!" He patted Gwen on her back.

There was coughing, a rough rasping noise, that sounded like throat cancer was making an early visit. Armitage looked up at Jack. The bold as brass UNIT recovery team leader had a "tell me what just happened " look. Jack avoided eye contact, as he turned and helped Gwen up. Watching carefully where he stood, as there were chunks of regurgitated Hawaiian pizza over the deck. Armitage got up.

"What just happened?" Shouted an frightened Armitage. "You're the fucking experts in these things. Tell me what just happened!" He shouted. Jack sighed, and then grinned. "Well Colonel, it's not just your standard UNIT recovery operation!"

He turned, and faced Gwen. "It's way beyond that now!" Her concerned look matched his.

He started down the hanger deck, to check if Flight Lieutenant Makler was ok.

Judging from the way she was standing, and was looking around awestruck, Makler was none the worst for wear. "She was the only one that didn't have dinner!" Jack detected a slight hint of sarcasm in Gwen's voice. "Cow!" She whispered. He smiled as he watched Makler carefully, something was just not right about that girl. His gut told him that, and his gut instinct was always just about one hundred percent.

"Sam!" Gwen called out. "Is everything ok?" Makler turned round slowly, and smiled. "I'm fine. Do you know what has just happened?"

"Some sort of temporal displacement I believe!" Jack replied. Gwen and Armitage looked at him. Jack grinned.

Makler smiled.

Gwen noticed it first, like drops of hailstones falling in the distance, getting louder as the storm approached. "What's that?"

"What is what?" Armitage replied annoyed.

Jack was about to say something. Then Armitage, and Jack heard it as well. They were getting louder. Jack turned. They were coming from all around, the access stairs and ladders. Not mechanical.

Footsteps, hundreds of them. Running, rattling the decks as they ran.

From the corridors within the ship. Figures swarmed out, human in movement, wearing dark grey and black uniforms, helmets, and gas-masks. They were armed with a lot of guns. Jack looked round for his revolver. Where the hell was it?

The rest of the team looked round, fixed to it in fear and confusion. Jack moved back to beside Gwen. As dozens of powerful torches blinded them. Then there was a metal grating sound, that the soldier within him recognised, safety's being clicked off. Jack put his hand to eyes to reduce the glare. "Whatever happens Gwen. Stick with me!" A startled Gwen looked at him. "Things are bad, and are about to get worse."

A voice echoed from a megaphone, in accented English. "You will put down your weapons, and raise your arms. You are now prisoners!"

"That's original." Whispered Jack, as he slowly raised his arms, Gwen copied him. "Who are they?"

"Of the third reich!"

"This just gets better and better."

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 2**

Three days earlier.

Tuesday

The weather wasn't letting up. The Captain of the 20,000 tonne MV Gypsy-traveller, was worried. The radar plot, from the bridge showed they were clear all the way into Cardiff. A twenty foot wave hit the bow of the container ship, but the Gypsy-Traveller ploughed on.

"First officer" He barked. "Weather update!" He commanded. "It's official Captain, the storm had been upgraded to hurricane, 150 kilometre an hour winds and a weather front to match." Both grimaced. They were in the Bristol Channel now, there was no other option other than to get into port, and quickly.

There was a flash of light for a moment directly ahead of them, then it faded. Storms were nothing new to this Captain, besides this ship was carrying the only consignment of electronic goods including the brand new Xbox 720's, to be delivered in time for the anticipated Christmas rush. There was nice bonus for him and his officers when they arrived on time.

"Contact bearing – 5 kilometres dead ahead sir!" The navigation officer shouted. The Captain was a twenty year veteran, both of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Marine. "Engine room, slow to one half, helm steer us hard to port."

"Aye aye sir!" The Pilipino helmsman obeyed immediately. From beneath their feet, the engines could be heard revving faster, and the Merchant ship lurched, as an wave hit her as she turned.

"First officer get in touch with Cardiff and Bristol. There is a merchantman running without any navigational aids nor lights. I want him reported and stopped!"

"Yes sir!"

There was a blast of air, and horizontal rain. One of the three crew members on external watch, had an excited look on his face. The Captain dismissed it, they didn't realise they were six minutes from a potential collision in a hurricane. The crew man was gesturing for him to come outside. Within a moment, he had donned his waterproofs, and was outside of the bridge, high above the waves. He cursed as a blast of salt laden water hit him.

"There!" The crewman pointed to the direction that they were originally travelling in. The Captain looked in the direction, and raised his night time binoculars. The Infra-red image took a moment to align itself. He gasped, turned away, and raised them again for the second time. It was a ship.

It was no ordinary ship. He whispered to himself, he was a keen naval historian, and recognised it immediately. That's a Colossus Class aircraft carrier. But they were all scrapped, sold off or sunk during or after the Second World War. He ran the binoculars along her structure, towards the carrier's bow. She was blackened, charred and scarred. There. Got it. He gasped. It can't be, it can't be.

HMS Medusa. He blinked.

Then as suddenly as the aircraft carrier appeared, in another searing flash of light she was gone.

The Captain looked like he had seen a ghost ship. He was right. HMS Medusa disappeared with all her crew in December 1943, off the coast of North-west Scotland. Eye witnesses, the closest being ten miles away witnessed a powerful flash of light. The admiralty board of enquiry after the war, admitted either a massive internal explosion accidentally or the aftermath of a U-Boat attack caused her sinking. Well, he rubbed his brow. They were wrong.

Very wrong.

She was startled, as the phone went. She had just fallen asleep, reading Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol". The sofa was comfortable, as the room lit by a warm fire. She grumbled as she reached over to grab it. It kept ringing, and she grew slightly annoyed. On the third attempt, she got it, activated it, and held it to her ear. Half expecting her amorous drunken city-type boyfriend to serenade her with a rendition of Jingle Bells, a warm tingle reached up her spine. She smiled. That changed.

"For all that we have prepared you for my child." A calm male voice spoke. "It is time!"

The warm feeling was replaced by a sudden chill. She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath.

"I understand. I will do my duty!"

The voice at the other end hung up. She switched the phone off, and mouthed a silent prayer. It was time to change history.

He outstretched his arms, and then his hands embracing the powers of nature that flowed around him. The wind, the rain, the thunder, and the lightning. Very Wagnerish. His dark blue over-coat swirled about. At the ledge of the tower-block overlooking the Road Dahl Plass, a more slightly powerful gust of wind almost caught him. Only then, did Captain Jack Harkness, Commander-in-chief of Torchwood-three sensibly decide that he should go in-doors.

He glanced at the horizon for one last time tonight. Amongst the flashes of lightning on the horizon, one flash caught Jack's eyes. He crouched down, hundreds of generations of knowledge and practical experience told him that this was not a lightning flash. He watched the horizon again, South-east, out in the Bristol channel. The rain was coming down in sheets now. Still Jack watched, counting the minutes. One minute, two, three, four, five.

There it was again. The same area, same frequency, same intensity. Five minutes, thirty-three seconds. Not lightning. He got up. Interesting.

"Ianto as ever you always deliver!" The smart suited Ianto Jones, nodded, as a mug of strong deep black coffee was placed on Jack's desk in his office. The hub was quiet, aside from water cascading down the central column from the rain, and the droning of a myriad of computer terminals running complex search and scanning programmes for anything that was on, near about, or came through the rift. The smart suited Ianto disappeared up the stairs.

It was quiet, must be the holiday season for the rift too. Jack mused. People out and about, shopping, drinking, making merry, falling into and out of love, it was the same the whole universe over, and he had seen some festivals. Oblivious to what went on, to what his team, protected them from. Speaking of which, where the hell were they.

He walked over to the glass partition. Sure enough, Toshiko was there busy working away on some recovered alien artefact. She didn't have a social life, damn good as she was Jack wished she that she had one. Owen was at home no doubt seducing some witless woman, plied with drink, and the promise of a good screw, and if she was really lucky his phone number in the morning. Ianto, the ever reliable Ianto was the reception desk, he'd just ordered pizza for the three of them. That left Gwen.

"It's ok Rhys – it's not the end of the world." I've witnessed a few almost the end of the world. A reassuring hand patted his back. He shrugged it off, and walked away from his girl-friend. The youngest ever looking sales-assistant watched him, eyes averted from Gwen. More in embarrassment for him that Gwen or Rhys was attracting from other customers and sales staff. Gwen watched Rhys, in dejection walking out of the store, into a busy rain lashed street.

She sighed. Not good, he's going to be unbearable now. She turned to the sales-assistant. Smiled very politely, she looked at his name badge, and went into her jacket pocket, and produced her Police-ID. She flashed it centimetres from his face, and then withdrew it. A startled Ian took a step back. "Look Ian – I have heard nothing but this X-Box 720 for the past month – morning, noon, at night, he even talks about it in his sleep." Her voice was pleasant but the tone was I would think very carefully how you are going to answer this. "If it makes him very happy Ian, it'll make me very happy." Ian gazed out of the store, Rhys stood dejected in the rain staring blankly into the front display.

A wide eyed Ian looked at Gwen. "All Xbox 720's have to be pre-ordered over the internet. Company policy, there's only a limited supply!" He stuttered.

Gwen's eyes narrowed evilly. "How many did you order?" Ian was beginning to hyper-ventilate. "One?" Ian shook his head. "Two?" No response. "Three?" Ian rapidly nodded his head, sweated appeared on his brow.

"Ok – what were you going to do?" Ian started avoiding eye contact all together. "I got bids for them on E-Bay, for two, one thousand five hundred pounds each!"

"They only cost five hundred pounds Ian!"

She loved doing this on the beat, grinding down the little low life scum, though there wasn't much chance of interrogating a Weevil for joy-riding or mugging a little old lady of her pension money in Torchwood.

"Well Ian – that I think is against company policy." Gwen patted him softly on the shoulder. "Now." She whispered. "Being the season of good-will, what are you going to do about it?"

"Here you go you big stupid oaf!" Gwen chided Rhys in the middle of the street. Rhys wiped the dripping rain from his face, to look at the slip of paper Gwen had just handed to him. "Is that what I think it is?" He gasped. Gwen smiled. "One Xbox 720, full spec. With three games, two wireless controllers, and all the other bells and whistles!" Rhys punched the air with joy, drawing a few concerned looks from passer-bys.

"You have to collect it at Eight O'Clock on Thursday morning, that's when the delivery is scheduled to arrive!"

Rhys smiled, then hugged her. "Smashing babe!" Gwen felt something vibrate, in her jacket pocket, Rhys tensed up and withdrew his hug dejectedly. Their eye contact was brief, but Rhys was disappointed.

The screen display showed Torchwood. Gwen activated it, then turned away.

"Hi"

"Got Rhys's Xbox yet?" It was Jack trying to be friendly.

"Yes and no!"

"Can you get back here asap!" Jack added. "Tosh picked up an energy spike that needs investigating."

Gwen frowned, then sighed. "I'll be right over!"

"Sorry for ruining your night!" Jack seemed apologetic, then hung up. Gwen waited for a few moments, then switched her mobile off. She turned round. Rhys was watching her. She smiled. "Sorry!"

"Can we have a life together Gwen?" Rhys sounded calm, he was in a public place not in there apartment. They had had this argument over a dozen times in the previous months, always when they tried to do things together.

"It's just for a couple of hours, order in some Chinese Rhys!" I need to start sounding less apologetic.

Rhys shook his head. "No babe. It won't do, that Torchwood lot have you out at all hours!"

"It's my career, it's like shift work, except longer more varied hours." The argument was definitely being lost here.

"We need to talk!"

"Can this wait until morning?"

"Now Gwen – like right now about where we're going!" He shouted. Rhys turned and walked away. Muttering: "I'll get a taxi home!"

Gwen stood in the middle of the street, watching Rhys stride away. "I love you." She whispered.

"There!" Toshiko pointed excitedly, then zeroed in on the 3D display of the Bristol Channel. "Running a full scan now!"

"Full spectrum Tosh." Jack ordered, leaving nothing to chance. "See if you can get something to penetrate that cloud cover can you?" Toshiko frantically started typing, scanning information from the 3D display and half a dozen other displays, and her amazing ability to make sense of it all.

"Better – military spy satellite coverage – the new Lancelot satellite." Jack grinned. "I like."

Moments later, the image that was a mass of clouds disappeared. Leaving a grey swirling sea, and a single vessel.

"Looks like a merchant vessel, bound for either Cardiff or Bristol."

"Access Lancelot's data. Timeframe from when you picked up the energy spike." Toshiko sighed, she was way ahead of Jack on that.

"Bringing up the recorded feed – now!"

Both intently watched the feed from the satellite. For moment the sea in front of the merchant vessel was clear, then out of no-where another vessel appeared. The merchant vessel took evasive action immediately, swerved and then passed by the recent addition. Then four minutes later, the other ship disappeared. Tosh and Jack traded looks. We both saw that didn't we?

"What did we just see?" Tosh zeroed in onto the merchant vessel's super-structure. Infra-red scans showed three people outside.

"They certainly saw something!"

It was close to midnight. The phone rang within some non-descript office on the 3rd floor of the Ministry of Defence's Main Building in London. A uniformed army officer, with the rank of a Brigadier sat puffing on a cigar, with total disregard to the MOD's non-smoking policy. Besides he had gotten his military assistant to disable the smoke alarm in this office. It pissed off the MOD hierarchy, and it pissed them off also that he had the ear of every political leader on earth. His teams got results, when needed. His organisation UNIT, was world's thin red line of defence against those things that went bump in the night. He sighed, and placed the cigar butt into an ashtray, then answered the phone on it's fifth ring.

"Brigadier – we have a situation!"

He glanced into the office across from him, Perry, his MA, was already recording the phone call, and making notes.

"A merchant vessel in the Bristol Channel has come across something rather unusual!" The Brigadier recognised the voice, as the Chief of Naval Operations. A top career professional, but utterly useless at bridge. "I see." Was the Brigadier's reply.

"It was one of our aircraft carriers." The admiral continued. "HMS Medusa!"

The Brigadier's heart stopped for a moment. He heard that right, he had heard the stories. "Okay!"

"We'll impound the vessel in the dock, the crew will be confined to their quarters. The Captain's an ex navy man, so he'll co-operate very well. They have eyewitness accounts, and video footage!"

"Good grief!"

"The ship appeared and disappeared within six minutes!"

The Brigadier leaned back in his comfortable leather office recliner. "I'll despatch a team myself." He said, picking up the cigar. "Don't worry Admiral – we'll get to the bottom of this!"

He nodded across to Perry, who frantically set to work based on a pre-arranged protocol. He had such a team in mind. "What port Admiral?"

"Cardiff – in the Tiger bay docks." Bugger! The Brigadier thought. "Any-where but there." He muttered under his breath. "Admiral – we'll have a team there by midday." The Admiral politely then said thanks, and hung-up, leaving the Brigadier with another problem to ponder. Perry appeared in front of his desk, with a paper for the Brigadier to sign. The team for Cardiff that was prepared by the ever efficient Perry. He placed the phone's receiver back, then grabbing a pen, quickly signed it. Time was of the essence now, otherwise a UNIT or military matter, would become a Torchwood matter. Perry quickly walked back to his desk, to make the necessary phone calls.

We can investigate one of our own little mysteries quite perfectly well, thank you. The Brigadier picked up the cigar, and inhaled the aroma.

Across the UK, in Glasgow, Portsmouth, Colchester, and central London, phones started to ring. They were picked up almost immediately. A UNIT recovery team had just been activated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 3**

Wednesday Morning

A slight breeze blew across Cardiff bay, amazingly the hurricane force winds had blew themselves out earlier in the morning. The Gypsy Trader, battered and bruised from the winds and waves the night before, moored herself alongside the Pier 2 at the Roath docks at Tiger bay. Shadowing her a few hundred yards off her port stern, was a Royal Navy patrol vessel.

On the docks was the mimimum number of dock personnel required to safely anchor the Gypsy Trader to her moorings. No-body was allowed on-board unless the MOD said so. To emphasis the point, three grey and green Army Land-Rovers turned up, and a dozen Army military police secured the docks, and its entrance.

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"Okay whatever happened last night." Toshiko zoomed in onto the military police on duty at the entrance. "It has our military friends worried."

Jack leaned into towards the screen. "Whenever our military friends get worried, they send for help!" Jack hissed. "UNIT!" They both said quietly. The hatred for UNIT, especially from Jack was venomous. Toshiko picked it up, reading into Jack's body language.

"Communications?" Jack commanded. "Two way radio traffic, checking in every fifteen minutes. There is nothing coming from the ship!"

"The crew are there." There was figures moving across the Gypsy-Trader, deck-hands doing the normal routine mind-numbing chores that you did on a ship in port.

"Owen – hospitals?" Owen leaned against the wall beside Toshiko's work station. "Nothing unusal to report, public health has not been contacted." He drawled, still annoyed at being called in, in the wee small hours. Gwen watched him, least he got some action last night.

"Gwen?"

Gwen straightened up.

"Local police haven't been contacted!"

Jack stood up straight. "Something has them worried." He turned, and walked rapidly past his team, brushing past them. "Owen, Gwen, you want to trade stories about last night's sexual escapades or lack of them, do so on your time!"

He grabbed his overcoat from the coat-stand. He glanced at them. "We're all going out to investigate!"

"Tosh anything on our phantom ship?"

"Nothing yet!"

"I want information on that ship, by the time we get there!" It was a demand, not a request, his tone was not friendly. Gwen, and Owen traded looks, this was going to be a long morning. The Weevil in the cells, was in a better mood than Jack this morning. Owen sighed, and made his way over to his workstation, to collect a portable data-scanning device, and his Torchwood issue sidearm.

"I sense that there is a little hostility here!" Gwen defensively folded her arms, inviting Jack into a confrontation. Jack sighed, looked at the ground, and then Gwen. "UNIT are scavengers, after Canary Wharf, they looted the place, more like grave-robbed it!" He paused, Jack seemed distant. "There were bodies on the ground, people still alive needing medical assistance." Jack turned, and started to walk away. "They came in, trucks, and helicopters and systematically stripped the place." His voice trailed away. "They left the dead, the dying, and the maimed!" He glanced across at Ianto. You where there too, you knew what it was like. "Tosh I need to know what is so important about that ship!" Jack walked on.

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He looked like he was young, dumb, and full of cum. The red-bereted military policeman walked over. Gwen smiled, sitting in the driver's seat of the jet black SUV, and flashed her Torch-wood id at him. He was a Lance-Corporal.

"Torchwood!" Gwen commanded.

The MP glanced at the ID, then Gwen for a moment. He had that, Oh god what do I do here look? Jack leaned over from the passenger's side, of the SUV. "Is there a problem Lance-Corporal?" The tone was, you do not want to mess with either of us.

The MP looked over at the guard at the gate. Who nodded. Another MP, within the gate-house, radioed in.

"Guard in the gatehouse is checking you out!" Toshiko said in each of their ear-pieces. Mentally Gwen readied herself for a sharp exit. There was a creaking noise, and the electric gate started to open slowly.

"You're in" Toshiko reported.

"Must be your way with words!" Gwen laughed, Jack didn't share the joke, as the SUV edged forward into the Roath docks.

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Slowly the SUV drove past deserted warehouses, some two storey brick office blocks that belonged to the dock management team. Rhys's company occasionally delivered or collected from here, Gwen recounted. The docks were in decline, and this reflected in the upkeep of the place. A solitary fishing trawler was moored up.

"I remember this place, it used to be busy!" Jack mused looking out of his side. Cargo ships, tramp steamers, trawlers. The place used to be a real melting pot with the myriad of cultures, and languages, a kind of human rift. Three hundred metres ahead, was the Gypsy Trader, with a solitary gang-way attached to it's hull.

The SUV pulled up. Gwen looked around as she got out. Aside from the odd seagull squawking, and wave lapping against the ship's sides, it was surreal, quiet. "Ever get the feeling that we're not alone?" She said rhetorically. Owen sighed, and muttered something under his breath. "Anything on the scanner?"

Owen glanced up. "Nothing – apart from the crew men up there." He pointed the scanner up the gang-way. Three crew-members, all of Indo-asian extraction wearing bright orange boiler suits were watching them. "Who want's to bet English isn't even their second language?"

"Careful with those remarks Owen." Gwen said sternly. Jack walked round from his side of the SUV. "I wouldn't worry, the Race Equality Commission guidelines don't apply to Torchwood!" He coldly smiled.

"Jack" Toshiko spoke into Jack's ear-piece. Jack signalled Gwen and Owen to be quiet "I've found information on the ship." She paused. Jack patiently waited.

"Always just when we need it Toshiko."

"It's a World War Two Colossus Class aircraft carrier. HMS Medusa." She excitedly gasped.

"Tosh – you're hyper-ventilating, slow down." He could picture Toshiko getting excited. There was something about that ship's name.

"It was believed sunk off the coast of Scotland in December 1943 on her maiden voyage, built in the John Brown ship yard in Clyde bank near Glasgow." She exclaimed. "There are a lot files relating to the ship. All are encrypted and password protected!"

"Can you bypass them!" Toshiko's voice was disappointed. "I've never seen this sort of encryption before. Are UNIT using new software?"

Jack sighed. Gwen and Owen watched him. "Try Tosh just try."

Toshiko signed off. Jack folded his arms, contemplating what Toshiko had just briefed him on. "Have any of you guys heard of HMS Medusa?"

Owen shook his head, and Gwen looked at Jack blankly.

"Very few have." He paused for a moment to think before continuing. "She was a brand new aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy. She was sunk off the coast of Northwest Scotland in December 1943, eye-witnesses said it was an explosion."

"Where there any survivors?" Owen walked along the dock taking more readings. "No survivors, no wreckage. It was only announced after the war ended."

"My grand-father was a sailor during the war." Gwen warmly smiled, his big tattooed arms, the war stories. "One thing about sailors is that they always talk."

Jack shook his head. "Not this time. Especially now when all files relating to the ship are now under the guard of UNIT!" Jack walked over to the gang-way. "Why censure then cover up the deaths of over five hundred sailors from over seventy years ago?"

There was a noise from along the dock. Jack, Gwen, and Owen looked in its direction.

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Speeding towards them in the direction they were looking, were two silver Toyota SUV's, headlights blazing. Jack grinned. "We're going to find out some answers, and soon!"

"We're not going to get out of here?" Gwen looked at Jack bemused, by the situation. It was almost like he was relishing the chance of a confrontation with the military. Jack casually leaned against the Torchwood SUV. "Don't worry I'll vouch for you Gwen."

"What about me?" Owen said.

Jack smiled, as the two vehicles drew ever closer. "You're on your own Owen." He folded his arms, and yawned, impatiently. "Naval prisons are full of seamen that you'd like Owen, so why deny you the fun."

Gwen turned round and saw six military policemen running towards them, from the other side of the dock. Pistols drawn, two were carrying assault rifles. "I suppose I could smile and be nice to them!"

The two Toyota SUV's screeched to a halt just yards from the three Torchwood team-members. Bemused crew members of the Gypsy-Traveller watched from their ship.

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Driver and front passenger doors of the two SUV's opened, there occupants couldn't be seen, as the windows were blacked out. Two people got out of each of them. The nearest one, a black man about Jack's height in a business suit got out along with a browned haired woman, dressed casually but carrying a hold-all and a laptop back-pack. The second one, a tall well built man in combat dress got out of the drivers' side, the passenger's side was a man wearing a naval officer's uniform, and he put on his naval cap, whilst the other put on a Green Beret, which meant he was a Royal Marine.

"Haven't seen those two before nor her." Jack said quietly to a concerned Gwen. Gwen watched them. The marine had his right hand on a hip holster with a pistol. The naval officer, was watching the three of them intently.

"Captain Jack Harkness." The Business suited man shouted.

"Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Armitage." Jack shouted back in reply.

"You are in a restricted sealed military area; you are liable to be arrested." Armitage angrily replied. Jack didn't seem the least bit fazed. "Or shot!"

Jack laughed, this was unnerving to Gwen and Owen. "I bet you would prefer that option Josh!" Jack grinned. "How's the jaw?"

Even from this distance, Gwen saw Armitage's pupils in his eyes dilate in anger, and thought for a god awful moment that Armitage might actually give the order to fire, Jack had nothing to worry about in that respect.

"This is a UNIT matter, not Torchwood!" Armitage sneered. "You have no authority here."

From behind Gwen and Owen, the military police raised their weapons. The naval officer walked over to Armitage, and held what appeared to be a brief but tense discussion. Both glanced over in the direction of Jack, and Gwen.

The naval officer took a few steps forward.

"Captain Harkness, I'm Lieutenant Commander Jamie MacKenzie, Royal Navy." A soft Scottish accent spoke calmly and clearly. "I ask that you immediately vacate this area." It was to the point, and very short. "If we require any assistance from Torchwood, we know where to find you and your team. This is now a UNIT recovery operation."

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Two army land rovers escorted the Torchwood SUV from the dock, watched by the UNIT team. Armitage was on his mobile, the other three were watching the departing team. Gwen glanced back. Owen was driving, as Jack sat in the back, he was very calm and very angry, and nobody wanted to be around Jack when he was very calm, and very angry. He sat in the back seat.

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"Do not ever countermand me in front of them, Lt Commander!" Armitage snapped as he walked MacKenzie. "You may be second in command." He muttered under his breath. The Royal Marine, and the brown haired woman watched. "However this is my operation!"

"With all due respect, Lt Colonel, co-operation in these circumstances with Torchwood might yet yield a successful outcome." Both were of the same height, and from a few feet away, looked each other in the eye.

For a few moments, the situation was tense. Armitage then turned round, and walked up the gang-way. The big Royal Marine sighed.

"Al – see if you can get security at this dock beefed up." MacKenzie said to Warrant Officer Travers. Travers nodded, he and Lt Commander MacKenzie knew each other professionally, from previous combat and UNIT operations. "I'll see what I can rustle up sir!."

"Cheers."

MacKenzie then smiled at the pretty, small brown haired woman. "Flight Lieutenant Makler, are you ready for the most boring part of the job?"

Makler nodded, rather too keenly. "I am sir."

"Follow me then." Mackenzie turned to go up the gang-way. He suddenly stopped, something caught his eye.

About fifty meters away, stood a man. He was middle aged, and very smartly dressed. Mackenzie blinked. He was gone.

There is something not right about this whole bloody thing. MacKenzie remarked.


	4. Chapter 4

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 4**

Wednesday

"That's definitely an Aircraft Carrier." Jamie watched the videotape from one of the Gypsy-Trader's crewman in the officer's ward-room. The footage even though shot at night in hurricane force winds, was of remarkable quality. Armitage watched it beside him, bemused, and starting to wonder why he was leading this team. Both prepared themselves for what happened next. 3, 2, 1.

There was a powerful white light, and then a blinding flash. No sound, save the wind and the rain. One moment HMS Medusa was there, the next she was gone. Jamie folded his arms. "I don't think we need to see that again!"

He remarked. Armitage sighed. The eye-witnesses were above reproach, a very experienced Captain, and three experienced deck-hands. Armitage ejected the video-tape, placed it in a cassette case, then a sealed evidence bag.

Sam Makler walked into the room. "No side-effects to worry about, the crew of 20, are in good physical health." Jamie stood up. "I think we're done here, there's no physical contact between the ships, so the next step…"

"Lt Commander." Armitage interrupted. "The next step will be taken in consultation with the Brigadier, and UNIT high command." Jamie, picked up his officer's jacket. "I recommend Colonel, that the next step is to monitor the area of the appearance and disappearance of HMS Medusa!"

"I will pass that recommendation to the Brigadier!" Armitage curtly responded. Jamie nodded. "Plus all files restricted or classified on HMS Medusa." Sam, sensing that things were becoming awkward drew breath, Jamie then Armitage looked at her.

"Yes Flight Lieutenant?" Armitage was starting to sound bored.

"Am I required there is really nothing here that requires my expertise?"

Jamie smiled, more in sympathy. He'd read her personnel file, young gifted RAF surgeon with a particular talent for forensics, attached to the Home Office Forensic Pathology in London to gain experience, infinitely more exciting and interesting than investigating a ghost ship.

"Just for a further day or two, Sam, UNIT will pick up the tab for your stay." Jamie said. I must ask her why she put her name down to be a volunteer for UNIT detached duty.

"Oh okay – I can do some shopping while I'm here." Jamie grinned, Armitage laughed, and turned to face her. "Keep your mobile switched on at all times Flight Lieutenant." Armitage grinned. "Don't spend too much!"

"See you both at the hotel bar then!" Sam warmly smiled, then walked out of the ward-room.

"Bright girl!" Armitage remarked.

"Pity we couldn't get Gill Senator!" Jamie remarked. "Food poisoning." Armitage added. "She loves a good mystery."

"There are one lot of people that we could call on – while we're waiting!" Jamie glanced over at Armitage. I know where this is leading. Jamie looked at him defiantly. "In certain circumstances, the UNIT recovery team Commander, can authorise assistance!"

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If blasting the hell out of weevils' targets gets the frustration out of you males, Jack, I'm bringing Rhys down here. Gwen stood several feet behind Jack, ear-protectors on, watching him firing rapidly into moving Weevil targets scoring killing hits on it, with that upgraded ancient hand-cannon of a gun. Jack stopped, flipped open the barrel, empty shell casing scattered onto the floor below. Jack glanced over.

"You have something to say!" Jack carefully, loaded bullets one by one in the Webley's six chambered barrel.

"I detected that you've had a bit of history with that Armitage?"

Jack sarcastically laughed. "Through-out the universes, across the millennia there is always an Josh Armitage, each one has the same distinctive mantra!" He raised the pistol.

"I am only obeying an order!" He shouted as he rapidly fired the six bullets, all bull's-eyes on a target fifty metres away. He paused, and lowered the pistol. Gwen was still there, she wasn't going away.

"He was the UNIT recovery team leader just after the battle of Canary Wharf, he lead a company of Para's into Torchwood Tower, with UNIT scientists and engineers closely behind. I was there!" Jack's voice trailed off.

"There was dead and dying people, but Armitage the team leader was not subtle, he stepped over the dying to get to the vaults, he got into the vaults and stripped everything!"

"You mentioned something about a Jaw?"

Jack sighed, and started loading more bullets. "If you see Lt Colonel Josh Armitage, ask him!" Jack's smile was cold, as he raised the pistol again.

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"Hmmm – Commander Bond!" Remarked Toshiko, as she identified the first of the four UNIT team members from satellite imagery of the docks. "The first James Bond film I ever saw, albeit it was on videotape"

"What's videotape?" Owen chided.

Toshiko politely ignored him, and continued on. "Was "You only live twice", Sean Connery in an naval officer's uniform!" She grinned at Gwen. "That and his gorgeous accent!" Both nodded in agreement.

"Excuse me – sorry I thought this was an investigation?" Owen chuckled. "Not some woman's discussion on what wet-dream fantasy that they had when they were teenagers!"

"Spoilsport" Toshiko whispered. She composed herself. "Lieutenant Commander Jamie MacKenzie, Royal Navy!" Owen swore he could hear the two of them sigh.

The second screen she pointed to was the massive bulk of the Royal Marine. "Warrant Officer Albert Travers, Royal Marines." The third screen, showed the brunette. "Flight Lieutenant Sam Makler, Royal Air Force and-" The three of them glanced at the fourth screen "Lt Colonel Josh Armitage, Parachute Regiment."

"Their UNIT records are classified, however their service records, namely Mackenzie, Travers, and Armitage are accessible!"

Toshiko pulled them up. "Armitage and Travers are combat experienced. Armitage served with the Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, volunteered to join the SAS, passed selection. From what it says here served with distinction in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia." Owen leaned closer. "He's a regular action hero." He turned to Gwen. "What's his beef with Jack?"

Gwen gave a blank look. "He's keeping stum over that one!" She folded her arms. "Though I think if Jack had a picture of him, he'd now be using it as target practice."

"Albert Travers, Belfast born joined the Royal Marines after finishing High School. He has served in Kurdistan, Sierra Leone, Lebanon and East Timor. Later he joined the Special Boat Squadron, the Navy's equivalent of the SAS, served with distinction in Afghanistan, though he has had warnings about his attitude to his superiors."

Gwen glanced at Owen. "That sounds familiar!"

Toshiko smiled. "Lieutenant Commander Jamie MacKenzie."

"If you two want to be alone – I can leave!"

Toshiko grinned. "Oh boy this is a cracker. Joined the Royal Navy, immediately after he graduated from Glasgow University, with an honour in advanced electronic engineering. Specialist in weapons technology, electronics, nuclear engineering, communications…"

"Must be a barrel of laughs at parties" Owen groaned. "Ouch" Toshiko gently kicked him in the ankle. He traded a glance with Gwen.

"Instructor at the Royal Naval College for two years. Project Director of the destroyer shipbuilding program in Glasgow, since early this year!" Toshiko further scanned the data. "Must have been brought in for his technical expertise."

"Not his good looks or charm I believe!" Owen got up, and walked over to his terminal.

"Final member of the team – Flight Lieutenant Sam Makler, Royal Air Force flight surgeon. Joined the RAF through a graduate programme from King's College London. British passport, both her parents are South African. Immigration checks are in the clear!"

Gwen got up. "Plain jane!" Toshiko winked. "He is gorgeous though." She pointed to Jamie's picture.

Gwen rapidly nodded. "I'm taken for!"

Pity.

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It was an unremarkable shopping arcade in Cardiff, so Sam noticed. Not too many people about either, the schools are in, and people where at work. She saw the shop, that she was drawn to.

A Stitch in time.

A knot of tension developed in her stomach. As she walked the dozen steps to the shop front, Sam peered in. There were hundreds of clocks throughout the shop, all sizes, all types, and all different times, there was a counter and a door a back store room. She watched inside the shop for a few moments, then opened the door and walked into the shop. A door bell rang behind her, as it closed.

"Can I help you?" A voice said behind her. Sam turned round. "I'm Mr Billis Manger, proprietor." Sam took a step back. He was elderly, and very smartly dressed, though from a different time, early fifties she guessed. She took a deep breath.

"I am Flight Lieutenant Samantha Makler." She said calmly. Then she added. "The time is now!"

Billis thinly smiled, it was not warm nor friendly, it was almost reptilian.

"You are so like your grand-father." Billis walked away from her, and around the counter. "He was very patient, though time did run out for him." He removed a flat cloth covered object from a shelf. "I told him to be very patient."

Billis removed the cloth, curiously Sam walked over to the counter. She looked at the object, it was a picture frame. "Please look closer!"

Sam picked up the picture frame, it was a black and white photograph. Sam's hands started to tremble, she place the frame back on the glass counter.

The picture was three men, two were in suits, from the style, forties. Sam looked at Billis in horror, one of the men in the picture was him. The date of the picture was 20th November 1943, Kiel military shipyard. Billis had not aged at all in over seventy years. However, the man in the centre of the picture was wearing a black military uniform. That was of an SS Officer.

Sam placed her trembling hands onto the counter.

"My dear you have had a bit of a shock. Would you like a cup of tea, or something stronger?"

Sam shook her head, then took a deep breath. "What am I to do?"

Billis nodded. "At 21:37 tonight, HMS Medusa will appear fifty miles from here in the Bristol channel, it will be for approximately seven minutes. At 21:37 on Thursday night, it will appear same place for fifteen minutes." Billis's voice became much more grave and stern. "At 21:37, on Friday night, HMS Medusa will appear at the same place, except this time for one hour." A white envelope appeared on the counter in front of her. "See to it that the names on this list within the envelope are on the ship when it disappears on Friday."

Sam took the envelope and placed it in her jacket pocket. "Failure my dear, is not an option!"

Sam felt a chill run up her spin. A number of clocks started to chime. To Sam they were like thunder claps. Billis thinly smiled, and from across the counter he placed a thin silver cigarette box in front of her. "This was your grand-father's. You can give it to him when you see. There is an inscription on the lid, in German, he'll understand." Sam took it.

"Such responsibility – you are going to change the course of history, Samantha!"

Billis smiled a cold chilling smile.

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"The level of security UNIT have employed, it's at a quantum level!" Toshiko exclaimed in frustration.

"English please Toshiko." Jack replied.

"I can't get into UNIT's mainframe!" She swung round on her chair. Jack sighed, and then he groaned. He shook his head. "You tried Tosh, it's been a long day for you."

"A hot bath and a long sleep!" She smiled, as she rubbed her eyes.

Owen and Gwen were gone for the night, on call. Ianto, he was down in the filing. The HMS Medusa thing was going no-where, his mind told him to drop it, his gut, well his gut told him other-wise. Torchwood, deep within it recesses, would give him answers, clues to the mysterious disappearance of this ship.

"I don't believe it!" A startled Toshiko, exclaimed staring at her main computer screen. The encryption breaking program that she'd been running to break UNIT's mainframe firewall had worked. Jack leaned in disbelief at the screen. A large UNIT MAINFRAME ACCESS GRANTED – PROCEED Y/N ? flashed below UNIT's insigna.

"Toshiko you've exceeded yourself this time!" Jack whispered.

"I think I have!"

There was a cough, Ianto stood behind them, rigid, and very smartly dressed, as both turned round. Toshiko fondly remembered Owen's description of him, the rod up his arse, had a rod up its arse.

"Ianto – finished your filing already!" Jack joked as he looked at his watch.

"I am Jack, but I was rather distracted by the visitors that have arrived!"

"You old dog Ianto I'd never have guessed!"

"Actually they asked for you Jack – the UNIT team leader and two of his team, are in the souvenir shop!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 5**

Wednesday

I don't think much of the décor. Jamie looked above and around him, Victorian meets Ultra-modern, meets…

What the hell is that? He and Travers watched open mouthed, as some giant bird swooped high above them was a. It was gone.

"We both did see that sir?" A confused Travers looked at Jamie. Jamie quickly nodded. They were both on a walkway overlooking an atrium with lower levels. Jamie leaned with both arms on the handrails. "It's probably radio-controlled!" He smiled. Armitage looked around with calculated contempt.

"If you'd like to follow me please." A polite smartly suited man, the same one who'd let them in, gestured at the three of them. Warm welcomes were in short supply here, as they walked along the walkway.

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"I believe you now have full and complete access to the UNIT mainframe!" A tense Armitage said from across the conference room table.

So this is the famous Jack Harkness, of UNIT legend. Jamie leaned back, observing the very polite, and very diplomatic discussion. Travers sat next to him, and across from them sat the polite Welshman called Ianto, and some techie girl called Toshiko. Both sides appeared to sizing each other up.

"Our mainframe got access into your mainframe through a back-door!" Toshiko quipped.

"Only because we allowed access!" Armitage retorted. Toshiko and Jack both glared at Armitage.

"Which I requested!" Jamie added.

Toshiko stumbled slightly, then blushed. "Thank you very much." Jack glanced at Jamie. You're a cocky little son of a bitch aren't you – I have seen you before from somewhere.

Jamie caught his glance, then returned a warm smile in Toshiko's direction. "You're welcome!"

"Which was against my own recommendation and judgement!" Armitage continued. "The Brigadier agreed."

Jack leaned back. " To what?"

"He has authorised my recovery team to work with Torchwood-3!"

Jack slyly smiled. Armitage was not uncomfortable with this one bit. "Love it – he has got a great sense of humour the Brigadier!"

Time to ramp up the enjoyment factor.

"Who's in overall charge of this investigation?" Jack knew the answer.

Armitage sighed, paused for a moment in thought. "You!"

Jack had heard him rightly. "That's very generous of you Josh!"

Jamie coughed drawing attention to himself. "Well – we have the pleasantries over with. Lets get to work!" He smiled at Toshiko and Ianto. "I'm sure you're as keen as me to find out the mystery of HMS Medusa!"

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"Ok – I was just in the bath, what's the…" Gwen gasped. Owen nodded in the direction of the Torchwood mainframe.

He grinned. "It looks like Commander Bond just put in an appearance." He drawled.

Toshiko and Jamie were going though data at breakneck speed. The large Marine named Travers was too busy watching them, and occasionally glancing up at the six storey high roof, looking for something. Jack was watching them from up on high in his office. Armitage was on the balcony opposite, on his mobile.

"Commander Mackenzie." Toshiko said. "This is Gwen Cooper, and Owen Harper our two other team members!"

"Pleased to meet you both!" Jamie looked over briefly, first at Owen, then Gwen. Then quickly went back to the multiple computer screens. "This is one hell of a computer!" He grinned at Toshiko, who rather too eagerly grinned back.

"Hate to break up the party guys – I want a full briefing in one half hour!" Jack voiced boomed out.

"He sounds almost normal, happy even!" Gwen remarked, still staring at Jamie. Owen observed this casually then smiled at Travers. Travers stared back at him. "Hello!" He flatly said. Owen nodded, unsure how to react to a guy who stood over a foot taller than him, and who should be on the World's Most Strongest Man TV show.

"Brad Pitt called for you while you were out!" Owen whispered into Gwen's ear.

"Did you take his number?" Gwen watched transfixed on Jamie.

"Only if you dump Rhys!" Owen grinned. Then grimaced in pain, as Gwen nudged him harder than usual. Both Toshiko, Jamie, and Travers looked round in their direction. "Take no notice of them." Toshiko said. "The usual immature adults!"

"I've met a few of those." Jamie casually said, glancing at Gwen. "That's some download speed!"

Owen loudly yawned, making sure everybody heard it. "I'll be at my terminal should anybody need me."

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They'd been this walk hundreds of times before, along the sand dunes, the shingle beaches, the multitude of rock pools, and back again along the Barracks just outside Barry harbour. This time was different as the wind howled in from the Bristol Channel, last night's storms had whipped up debris, and the like nothing else before. Old Ben, and Lucky, his black and white collie bitch were getting their daily exercise, before going home via the pub, and a whiskey to chase away the winter blues. His daughter would complain he remembered with a wry smile.

Lucky disappeared behind a sand dune, moments after being let off the leash. Ben would walk at a canter just to catch up, but in this weather, his hip would give him jip. Moments later, Lucky started to bark furiously, like dozens of times before it was either a crab or a dead sea-bird, so Ben didn't hurry.

It was only when Ben rounded the sand dune and saw what Lucky was barking at. He was glad that his daughter made him carry a mobile phone.

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"HMS Medusa – disappeared with all six hundred of it's crew on the 13th December 1943. Her last known position was fifty nautical miles North-North-West off the Isle of Harris, western Scotland."

Jamie stood up, watched by all in the conference room. "The disappearance was thought to have been attributed to a catastrophic explosion caused by a U-Boat attack!" A holographic map in the centre of the conference room table, showed the area of the disappearance. "HMS Acasta, a convoy escort destroyer." A blue flashing light which denoted HMS Medusa, was joined by a yellow flashing light denoting the destroyer. "Witnessed a white flash of light at around twenty-one fifteen hours, shortly followed less than a minute later by a large bang, which fried her radio and radar equipment!"

"What was HMS Medusa doing?" Armitage sat forward in his seat keenly listening.

"She was to rendezvous with an out going convoy to New York, probably to provide escort?"

Jack shook his head. "Lt Commander – a fleet aircraft carrier on escort duty, does that seem a bit strange?"

Jamie nodded, and thinly smiled. "Yes – considering the convoy that she was alleged to have been escorting had a smaller escort carrier with them!"

"That's highly irregular!"

Toshiko coughed to draw attention to herself. "Her manifest showed that she was not carrying any aircraft!" Jamie nodded to Toshiko, grateful for the introduction.

"A lot of Medusa's records are still unaccounted for." Toshiko added. "However there is a lot for a newly built ship." Jamie sat down, inviting Jack and Armitage to ask further questions.

"Such as?" Jack groaned.

"She was built almost in complete secrecy in John Brown's in Clydebank." Jamie continued. "Sailed with a skeleton crew to the Garochead in the Firth of Clyde."

"Never heard of it?" Jack snapped.

"It's better known as Faslane – where we keep our nukes and subs!" Jamie smiled back.

"Stayed there for a month, before sailing out to join this convoy!"

"That is called operational secrecy Lt Commander, it's nothing new in wartime." Jack drawled, almost bored. "Yes!" Toshiko excitedly exclaimed. "Except when they received their orders!"

"How so?" Armitage sounded interested.

Jamie grinned. You're just going to love this.

"Their orders came signed, sealed, and direct from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower, and the then current wartime director of Torchwood-one!"

A type written and very dated piece of paper was projected upwards, to emphasise the point. Owen leaned forward, so did Travers.

"You know how much a historian would pay for this piece of paper?" Jamie casually remarked.

Jack drummed his fingers on the desk. That meant that part of the answer to the Medusa mystery, lay directly beneath him, buried in one of Torchwood-three's vaults. He glance at Ianto, almost telepathically Ianto glanced back at him, looked at Jack for a moment, then nodded. If anything was there, he'd find it.

"So we've got a warship that has reappeared decades after it disappeared shortly after it's Captain received top secret orders!" Toshiko exclaimed.

"It's got the makings of a very good thriller!" Replied Owen.

"Or a very bad science-fiction film!" Gwen casually said. All eyes round the table fixed on her. "Rhys reads a lot of conspiracy novels!" She shrugged her shoulders more in apology than in embarrassment.

"Yes!" Jack rubbed his chin. "Gwen boyfriend plus daft theories equal not much in the brain cell department!"

Gwen puckered up her lips in a bid to retort, especially when everybody was looking at her, especially Jamie.

I'm not going to defend Rhys, it's just not worth it.

Her mobile on the table in front of her, started to vibrate. Gwen silently cursed it. You've picked a hell of a time to butt in Rhys, she scolded. She picked it up to answer it. The number and name on it was not Rhys, but it was a familiar name.

"Andy!" She said. "This isn't a good time to call!"

PC Andy Davidson laughed loudly at the other end. Then what sounded like wind blowing in the background was heard. "It never is Gwen, but your Torchwood mob always turn up at the most in-opportune times!"

Gwen felt Jack's get the hell of the phone look boring down on her. "I'm a little bit busy Andy – can you get to the point!"

"Well – you know your special operations mob are always interested in weird things!"

"Yes!"

"Does having a dead man washing up on the Barracks, dressed in a World War Two sailor's uniform, and looking like a mummified corpse count?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 6**

Wednesday Evening

We never do anything together now, Gwen! The last words of Rhys echoed in Gwen's mind, as she walked down the sand dunes, another pointless phonecall. Sam Makler, walked beside her carrying her kit, Owen walked a few metres in front carrying his kit, which perversely was just a single scanner, while Sam needed an entire hold-all. A series of strobe lights marked the area where the body was found. The wind was getting up, and waves could be heard crashing just feet away.

"Well that is a perfect face for radio!" Owen crouched down beside the body. Sam stood behind, a dull clump, could be heard as she dropped her hold-all onto the sand. Owen shook his head.

"Uniform is standard for Royal Navy World War Two!" He watched Gwen stand a few feet away, watching the waves.

Owen took out his PDA sized Bekaran scanner, and went to work. The grimly emaciated face appeared contorted in pain, didn't spook him. Some things did, this didn't.

"Don't we need to examine him when we get back to Torchwood?" Sam asked curiously watching Owen. Owen grinned. "We do – but it never hurts!" He went back to his scanning. "To do some preliminaries here!" Sam leaned over to peer over at the scanner, Owen glanced up. "The scanner's Torchwood issue – I'll show you how to work it if you say please!"

Sam thinly smiled. "Yes please!" She walked over, and crouched down beside him. Owen handed to her the scanner. "It works like this…"

Hook, line and sinker. Gwen adjusted her jacket against the buffeting from the wind, whilst watching Owen smooth talk Sam.

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"That's very interesting!" Jamie looked at a screen. "Toshiko – run a data file on this name in the crew-member's list!"

"You have something?"

Jamie looked at his notepad, then the screen again. "It's a name that appears on the list of crew-members I've cross-checked it against the lists of active World War Two Royal Navy personnel it's not on it!"

"Shoot!"

"Elias Carr-Bright!" Jamie drummed his pencil against the note-pad. "Got it." Replied Toshiko. "Be a few moments!" Jamie got off his seat, and checked his watch. Good grief, is that the time. Five past nine. He sighed, time flies.

"What do you lot do for dinner?"

Toshiko grinned as she looked up from the myriad of screen. "Order in a pizza!"

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Jack looked rather frightening, almost demonic in the failing light, in the vaults deep below the Torchwood offices. Ianto thought. They were in a room, off the main corridor. It stank of old files, and no air. In fact it took the two of them, a few minutes to prise open the wooden and Iron door. There were rows of leather bound storage boxes on grim metallic shelving, a kind of Ikea meets Metropolis. Jack placed his torch, down onto the solitary table within the room. He stared at the boxes.

"This is everything itemised from September 1939 to September 1945?" It wasn't a request from Jack, it was a demand.

Ianto nodded. "That is correct – all boxes are sealed and locked. I believe you have the skeleton key!" Jack placed a wrought iron key onto the table. "Very interesting time, Torchwood's main aim at the time was the defeat of the Axis!"

"You've read some of them!"

"Only those that I am cleared to Jack!" Jack slyly looked at Ianto. It was a lie.

"Leave me!"

"I can have some supper brought down!"

"No – I don't have the appetite for a pizza!" Jack walked a few steps into the room. "Leave me." He whispered.

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Jamie leaned against the railing over-looking an forbidding looking cold silver steel autopsy table. Owen and Sam were doing whatever pathologists did the entire world over. The body on the table was human, but it looked almost desiccated. Poor sod. Jamie remarked. Gwen had radioed in his name from his dog-tags.

His name was Seaman Arthur Bestow, born in Warrington, deckhand HMS Medusa, age nineteen. No family, a Banardo's boy, an orphan. Jamie loosened his grip on the railing. The age of that corpse on the table, was a lot more than nineteen. It was a pity, nobody had missed him. Using Torchwood's super-duper computer system, he had accessed everything on Arthur within moments.

"This is really weird!" Owen shouted up. "Really weird!"

"Define really weird." Gwen appeared beside Jamie, sipping a mug of coffee. "His DNA age shows he is only nineteen years, and six months old." Owen walked round, and enlarged the monitor's image. "Yet on a cellular level his body shows rapid sudden aging!"

"So that's what killed him?" Jamie said.

Owen shook his head in response. "This guy must have smoked since he was a kid, lung cancer would have got him eventually!"

"Then what?"

Owen zeroed in the scanner onto a area of Arthur's upper vertebrae. The top second and third vertebrae were broken.

"Broken neck!" Owen said forlornly. "I'm going to run a series of more scans, should take us most of the night!" He winked at Sam, who blushed.

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"_Terence_ and _Phillip_ have now been deployed!" Travers stood up from his temporary computer terminal. Jamie nodded. "Thanks chief?"

Toshiko looked round, her confused look was much the same as Gwen's.

Jamie grinned. "_Terence_ and _Phillip_ are two Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAV's that we use routinely for surveillance!" He took his seat. "Know those UFO reports that you keep getting over the Solway Firth?"

"Yes" Gwen replied.

"UNIT has a wee testing facility in the Scottish Borders a mini Area 51." Jamie sipped his tea that was now lukewarm. "_Terence_ is a photographic surveillance full spectrum, while _Phillip_ is a electromagnetic surveillance. I have them over HMS Medusa's position that was reported last night!"

"Was Armitage okay with that?" Toshiko queried.

Both Travers and Jamie laughed in unison. "Hell no!" Jamie looked at the clock on the wall. "They should be returning to base in the next hour!"

Gwen sat across from Jamie. "What's Jack's beef with Armitage?"

Jamie shook his head. "I honestly don't know Gwen – it happened before my time!"

"Canary Wharf?" Toshiko asked.

"I'm afraid myself and Warrant Officer Travers was in Afghanistan, along the border with Iran!"

Jamie looked at Travers, who nodded, he was okay for the Lt Commander to continue with this particular story. "The Iranian's shot down something that flew over one of their not so secret nuclear facilities, it wasn't of this Earth lets just say!"

"Luckily for us, and unluckily for them, it crashed inside Afghanistan within the mountains." Travers continued. "Myself, the Lt Commander at short notice, were despatched into the crash site!"

"Only to find the Iranian Special Forces trying to recover it themselves, with the help of the locals?"

"Locals?" Gwen asked.

"Taliban rebels, lots of them." Jamie placed the mug of tea on the table. "We called in an air-strike, that pretty much added to the carnage of the crash!"

Jamie paused. "We went down, I identified which parts were critical – recovered them. Then I called in another air-strike to destroy what was left!"

Jamie stared at Gwen. "The components that we recovered where beyond their weight in platinum. Gwen, very useful in terms of navigation, propulsion, and stealth." All while this and Canary wharf was going on, there was a suicide bomb attack in Glasgow which killed twelve people, and left one in a coma. Who was my fiancé.

Jamie sighed wearily. "You're looking at me and Travers, two UNIT legends!" Gwen smiled warmly.

"Whoa!" Toshiko exclaimed excitedly. "We just got a tachyon spike!" The Torchwood mainframe was going slightly haywire. "I'm zeroing in on its location!" Her fingers were working frantically.

"_Phillip_ just picked up something too!" Jamie shouted. "Lasted for a micro-second." This is it. "I'm having _Terence_ scan everything in the area!"

"You think it's our ship?" Gwen watched the UAV's camera's now on the large plasma screen TV in Torchwood-3 central Hub. Jamie rubbed his chin. "I think so!"

A moment later, _Phillip_'s sensor's picked it up again. "Another Tachyon spike, much longer five micro-seconds!" Toshiko announced. Jamie brought both UAV's into a hover mode, the weather condition's were much better than last night. Nobody else was about in the Bristol Channel tonight, he wryly summarised.

"Something's happening!" Toshiko whispered.

_Phillip_'s sensor readings were literally going off the scale. "Whatever it is, it's big and it's…" Jamie paused in mid-sentence, stunned in silence. Gwen walked closer to the plasma monitor. Travers gasped. Toshiko just looked.

Floating in the middle of the screen viewed quite clearly from the UAV camera's, was HMS Medusa.

"We have a positive contact at." Jamie looked at his watch. "21:37 hours."

His hands flew across the laptop. "Going to _Terence_'s infra-red scanner!" He exclaimed. "Al – are there any RAF or Navy units nearby?"

In a glorious spectrum, the infra-red image of HMS Medusa appeared. The ship appeared cold apart from her aft section. Something was glowing white hot.

"Engine's still working!" Travers said.

"That isn't where her engines should be!" Jamie replied, concerned. "I'm bringing _Terence_ in closer one-hundred metres. I'm placing _Philip_ at one kilometre." He turned round to Toshiko. "You getting all this?"

Toshiko smiled. "As ever – it's good to be working with professionals."

Oh please! Gwen whispered underneath her breath. Make it obvious that you are interested in him.

"Get Jack and Josh in here – they might want to see this!"

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Jack held his hands to his face, and breathed deeply. A whole box of rank musty smelling files was in front of him. They were dated from Mid 1943 until the end of the war. CLASSIFICATION BIGOT – MEDUSA. The answers were down here, he was right. Marked right in front of him, the highest secrecy rating of the entire Allied war effort.

"Jack, Lieutenant Colonel Armitage – can you, can you come up here!" Gwen's dullest tones brought him abruptly out of his thoughts.

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"Structure is still intact." Jamie manoeuvred the UAV feet from the Carrier's main super-structure, a powerful search-light shone into the bridge. A flash went off now and then, a back up camera took pictures. "That is very interesting!"

Jamie muttered.

"Define very interesting!" Gwen retorted from behind him. Jamie grinned. "From what I see on the bridge, everything looks like its ship-shape and Bristol fashion!"

"Like the crew left in a real hurry!" Owen said.

"Uh-huh, that too. Apart from the weather damage, HMS Medusa could be ready to start flight operations immediately." Jamie answered. "Believe me, we are short of ships!"

"Let's see if we can a wee peek inside!" Armitage, and then Jack joined the small crowd seated behind Jamie and Toshiko.

"Main-frame's picked up a tachyon pulse again – same frequency and duration last time." Toshiko calmly said.

"What the hell!" Jamie exclaimed. The picture from _Terence_ was becoming hazier, and the control from the laptop was getting more and more sluggish. "I'm putting _Phillip_ on an automatic survival programme!" The satellite image showed _Phillip_ speeding away at a near supersonic speed, leaving Jamie to try to control an ailing _Terence_.

"Another – tachyon pulse!" Shouted Toshiko.

"Fuck!" Jamie shouted, slamming his fists onto the laptop. All of _Terence_'s systems red-lined. The last tumbling image was of HMS Medusa's bow, and the gray Bristol Channel. All eyes were now fixed on the satellite image of HMS Medusa.

One moment she was there, then there was a bright flash of light. Seconds later just an empty patch of the Bristol Channel remained devoid of a ship.

"I've seen some magician's tricks in my life." Remarked Owen casually to Sam. "That certainly beats them!" Sam nodded, and smiled.

"Yes" Sighed Armitage. "Except this one cost UNIT a priceless piece of kit!" He patted Jamie on the back. "I assume the cheque's in the post!"

"Point taken!" Jamie turned. "However we got more detailed footage of the ship, plus more!" Toshiko nodded. "Infra red, radiation, electro-magnetic, and air samples!" She grinned at Armitage. "Not a complete loss!"

There was a very loud bang, as Jack unceremoniously dropped a large box onto the floor from behind them. "Opps – it definitely wasn't a complete loss tonight people, I've got some light reading here!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 7**

Wednesday Evening / Thursday Morning

"It's very kind of you to escort me back to my hotel!" Sam, smiled as Owen held her jacket for her to put on. The grin on his face was something to behold, Gwen noticed as they exited through the gift shop.

Jamie glanced at his watch. "One am!" He said concerned, rubbing his eyes. "Do you guys work normal hours?" Toshiko thinly smiled. "Social life does not come as standard with this job. Is it the same with UNIT?" Jamie yawned. "Oh yeah!" Travers was snoring on a chair beside them, oblivious to the world. Jamie glanced at his watch. Toshiko noticed it. "I've got a private call to make, I'll be back."

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"Project Medusa!" Jack sat with his feet upon his desk. Armitage stood in the doorway to his office, noting the piles of paper-work scattered on the floor, which were dank and musty files almost a century old. "A project so secret it was given the same level of security as Operation Overlord and the Manhattan Project, Lt Colonel, yet nobody knows what it is!" He remarked in frustration.

"The files?"

Jack threw a bundle of papers at Armitage, which scattered across the office. Armitage crouched down and picked up a sheet, then noticed why Jack was more annoyed than his usual self. Great big chunks of paragraphing had been censored, blackened out with a thick black marker pen. From all the paperwork scattered about the floor, every sheet of paper was censored.

"I can see how this poses difficulties!" Armitage casually remarked. "However – from what I've seen of your team, and mine this shouldn't prove an obstacle!"

Jack folded his arms, and gasped. "That's a hell of a compliment Lt Colonel, and for an encore I'll untie the Gordian Knot once we've solved this little caper!"

Armitage grinned.

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"Hello, it's Lieutenant Commander Jamie MacKenzie, ward sister." Jamie sat down on the steps that circled the Road Dahl Plass. "I'm just checking up on Pamela Williams's condition." Jamie braced himself against the cold wind that blew in from the bay, he watched the couples and crowds leave the rows of pubs, clubs, and restaurants that seemed to thrive in this part of Cardiff, people getting on with their lives. Moments passed, as he listened to the specialist ward sister's report. "Thank you Ward-Sister." He switched off his mobile. No change, the same as it was yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. The same for the past eight-teen months, I think you need to move on. A voice told him.

"Is this seat taken?" A familiar voice, snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked up. "No – it's free, Gwen!"

Gwen sat down, beside him, and on a step lower.

"Everybody's breaking up for the night!" Gwen smiled. "The excitement is too much for one day!" Jamie checked his watch. "Then we'll begin it again in six hours!"

"How do you cope?" Gwen's voice seemed distant. Jamie thinly smiled. "I love the job, my father was Navy, my Grand-father was Navy, you learn to deal with the difficulties. You?"

"Not very well. I keep people that I care about in the dark, they keep asking difficult questions, which one day I might not be able to lie about!" Jamie adjusted his collar against the wind. "You're lucky Gwen." Jamie sighed. "The people I care about have got lives of their own to even bother asking me about mine!"

"Who are they?"

"My family, sister, mother, niece and nephew!" Jamie smiled warmly. "What about your Dad?"

"Captain Andrew MacKenzie, Royal Navy, posthumously awarded the military cross in Falklands, April 1982." Jamie drummed his fingers on the cold concrete. "He was killed in action attempting to defuse an Argentinean air force bomb which didn't explode within the engine room of HMS Arrowhead during an attack on the San Carlos landing ships." Jamie leaned forward, clasping his hand. "Unfortunately the bomb wasn't a dud, it exploded while he was working on it, killing him, and sinking the Frigate. I was six; there is a picture of me on the front page of the Daily Record, accepting his medal from the queen!"

The cold wind was starting to bite now. "Let's get back to the hub."

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Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Lt Colonel Armitage, Toshiko Sato, and Lt Commander Jamie MacKenzie. Too bad, you're not on it Owen. Sam re-read the note from Billis. She heard Owen coming, and put it back into her jacket pocket, which was casually slung over a chair in her Millennium Hotel's Hotel room. But that's not to say I can't have a little fun. From the reflection on her hotel room windows, he walked in, gently closing the door behind him. The chinking of wine glasses meant he had been successful. She turned round, and smiled. Sam could read him like a book.

"One bottle of very expensive red wine – South African I think!" Sam grinned, at Owen trying to sound snobby. "How did you manage that?" She replied.

"The less I reveal about my techniques the better for all of us!" He placed the bottle of wine, and glasses on the small table that was next to the window. Sam walked the few steps over to Owen. "I have ways of making you reveal your techniques Dr Harper!" She leaned forward, her lips touched Owen's. She gently broke away. "Tell me everything!" She huskily whispered.

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"Interesting!" Toshiko ran the name again to be doubly certain. Elias Carr-Bright, it wasn't a name that leapt out at you, if you glanced at it.

"Tell me you have something Tosh?" Unknown to Toshiko, Jack had crept in behind her. His foot-steps masked by Travers' snoring.

"I think I have!" She smiled, turning around. "It's a…"

Gwen and Jamie walked down the spiral stair-case, laughing and joking. Toshiko noticed this, and briefly frowned for a moment. Jack caught a glance of her disappointed frown. "It can wait for tomorrow kiddo!" He got up, and patted her on the shoulder. "Have a nice hot bath and a long lie!"

She quickly locked her terminal. "Thanks!" She whispered.

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Advanced technology from races thousands, no millions of years more advanced than ours. Sam lay wide awake, the thin hotel sheets, covering her naked body. Owen lay sprawled beside her, deep in a blissful sleep. Out of this world weaponry that was stored deep inside the vaults below the hub that could lay waste to armies and destroy cities. A ripple of excitement pulsed up her spine. Unheard of medical technology that could cure diseases, and perform miracles, that Owen had demonstrated to her. She could see why she was chosen for this mission.

Sam slowly got up from bed, mindful of not disturbing Owen. Tonight would be the night, when history would change. Totally oblivious to being naked, she walked across the hotel room, to the huge curtained off bay windows, slowly she prised them open, the Cardiff skyline at 3am was peaceful aside from the usual light pollution, her room offered a fantastic view.

Sam wondered where she would be in forty eight hours time. She turned round, and smiled, Owen was stirring. Sam went to close the curtains; inadvertently she looked down into the streets below.

A man was staring at her from the street below silhouetted by a street lamp. Sam felt them bore into her. Cold black reptilian eyes.

Billis was watching her.

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"Are you doing anything tonight?" Rhys said whilst fixing his tie in the living room mirror. "Should I be?" Gwen replied watching him, anticipating having to fix the tie, like a million times before. "It's the company's Christmas party tonight at El-Gringo's, you know that new Mexican place that opened up recently?"

"What time at?" Gwen asked dreading the answer.

"Eight pm – but the office will be totally plastered by then, we're finishing up at five!" Rhys smiled pleased at the knot, in the mirror. He turned round. "That's if Torchwood allow you away!"

The final sentence had a sting in it. "Do your lot have Christmas parties?"

Gwen glanced disapprovingly at the attempt of a Windsor knot. "It's a hush-hush you know, special-ops we don't even know we have one until we get there." She said walking over. "I'll try to be there – haven't I always been at your company's Christmas parties?" Gwen with both hands gently loosened the tie's knot.

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Sam yawned, as she made sure her hotel room was locked. Owen has left an hour ago, stating he did not want to arouse suspicion. The memory of their early morning love-making, Sam thinly smiled, was of an energetic, frantic affair but none the less very pleasurable, she had no doubts that it would much be the same tonight!

Sam turned around to walk down the corridor to the lift. She stopped abruptly startled at Billis who stood three feet away.

"Sorry I…"

Billis slapped her.

The pain stung Sam as she gasped. Billis looked at her, completely unemotional. "You are a stupid girl." He whispered. "You are pacing all that your Grand-father and I have worked for in jeopardy!" He paused. "For some stupid one night relationship with that individual!"

Billis stepped forward. His eyes met with Sam's. Do not think for one moment my girl that you are not expendable!"

He whispered. "Terminate this relationship immediately or I shall take matters into my own hands!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Torchwood: Medusa**

**Chapter 8**

Thursday

"You know Toshiko it does look very interesting, but it looks very much like a grainy black and white photograph of a geek!"

Owen squinted his eyes, and twisted his face. "I stand corrected – a geek in a bad suit wearing NHS glasses!"

"Takes one to know one!" Gwen quipped.

"You don't know much about 1930's nor 40's fashion Owen!" Jack said, standing behind them, in the conference. "I had a suit like that!"

"You're kidding!" Owen replied straight-faced, straightening up. Watching Gwen, Jamie, and Travers grinning like lunatics. "Toshiko, please continue!" Jack said sitting down.

"Doctor Elias Carr-Bright!" Toshiko continued, slightly frustrated and trying very badly not to show it. "One of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century!" Another picture was projected onto the screen. "He was so intelligent, at the age of four, he was doing complex mathematical equations, as well as studying physics, and geometry!" A picture showed the young Carr-Bright, with his parents, a mini-me of his father. "He was privately tutored on his parents' farm outside Winnipeg in Canada. Won a scholarship to Toronto University, and studied Theoretical Physics with engineering!" The screen showed an alumni photograph, of Carr-Bright graduating in 1928, at the age of twelve.

"I bet he was bullied at school!" Owen remarked.

"Please Owen, one smart ass remark per day is all we can bear!" Toshiko glared at first Owen, then Gwen for interrupting her.

"From 1929 until 1936, he worked on his parents farm, where he patented a number of inventions. In 1936 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he met this man!" The picture changed.

"That's Sir Robert Watson-Watt!" Jamie said deep in thought. Toshiko grinned, somebody in the room recognised the man. Six pairs of eyes looked at Jamie.

"He's the inventor of the RADAR!" Jamie smiled.

"Carr-Bright and Watson-Watt worked very well together. However Carr-Bright was driven by the fringes of science, to push new boundaries. Eventually they fell out in 1938, Watson-Watt is a name remembered by history, Carr-Bright forgotten!" Toshiko's voice drifted off. A kindred spirit that she sympathised with.

"Except for this, a paper on Quantum Mechanics, that he got published while he worked with Watson-Watt!"

"Ok Tosh – what's the connection?"

Jamie breathed deeply. "His name appeared on the crew list for HMS Medusa in 1943!"

Jack grinned. "I love this girl, great work Toshiko!"

"So we have a name that shouldn't be on a list?" Armitage whispered from the top of the conference room table. "What is it to do with the disappearance of an aircraft carrier in 1943?"

"We have a crewman who shouldn't have been part of the crew!" Jack added. "Who just so happened to specialise in pushing the scientific boundaries."

"We have a body" Owen remarked. "That shows rapid signs of aging!"

"The hub's computer's and the UAV's picked up a lot of tachyon pulses!" Jamie leaned back on his chair. "Are tachyon's and quantum mechanics linked?" He looked over at Toshiko.

"On a cellular level the scanners picked up tachyon traces minute quantities, but it was definitely there." He folded his arms, pleased that he now had something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion.

"Terence's camera's did pick up the heat source from something very very hot from within the ship!" Jamie displayed a holographic representation of the ship, and compared it, to the UAV's infra-red image. "The location was the aft hanger deck!"

"We've just put together a few more pieces of the jig-saw puzzle!" Jack smiled, as he reached behind him. Everybody watched as he struggled for a few moments, then with great effort produced, a large black leather bound book, that was dropped onto the conference room table with a loud thud, and corresponding dust cloud.

"What is that?" Gwen said, waving away the dust cloud from her general direction.

Jack responded with a trade-mark know-it all grin. "This Gwen, in the days before computer systems, is a ledger book!" The book was opened very, very carefully. "This was how accounts were kept!" He had already marked where he wanted with a book-note. "Like all secret government organisations, Torchwood being no different, the work that you did was classified, but the one thing that was kept for scrutiny was…"

"Finance details!" Ianto casually said, from sitting beside Armitage and Sam. Jack smiled. "From June 1938 to November 1943, Torchwood funded Dr Carr-Bright's research!"

Jack paused. "To the tune of several million pounds per year for five years. The expenditure was signed off personally by the Torchwood-One Director, and his Majesty the King!"

"Oh boy!" Jamie said. "I think I know where this could be heading!"

Jack nodded. "I hate saying this, the ship is expendable. It's whatever was inside that ship is what is important!"

"That close on to nearly five hundred men disappeared for!" Gwen whispered quietly.

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"I've managed to get for us a Merlin, on call from 7pm tonight!" Jamie grinned at those who looked at him with perplexed looks. "It's a helicopter!"

With the exception of Ianto, Sam, and Owen, all were gathered round the 3D imagery gathered by the UAV's the previous night. Particularly the glowing white hot source of heat from the Carrier's hanger deck.

"You want to try to land on it Lt Commander?" Jack glared at Jamie. "Until we know precisely what it is down there, we observe strictly from a distance!"

"I thought that was Torchwood's operating style, venturing where Angels fear tread?" Jamie grinned in a retort.

"In our line of work Lt Commander, it's usually the Angels that we fear!" Jack turned round. "You'll get your shot at glory!"

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"What's in here?" Sam curiously peeked through the grating on an ancient bolted wooden door numbered 75. Owen viewed her lithe figure, in jeans and blouse, so flexible, so…he shook himself out of the day-dream. "Very dangerous!" He peered in.

"Some arms dealer traded those in, they're four of them sealed in a solid black granite block." He paused, the arms dealer was from another galaxy, a shape-shifting sociopath. Owen closed his eyes in disgust to get rid of the memory, I can't believe I snogged it!

"Zero-point energy storage units!"

Sam smiled. "You're talking like Toshiko?"

Owen caught a glimpse of it. "In there, you have something the size of a five pence piece, that could run the city of London's energy needs for ten thousand years, or a bomb that would make Hiroshima, look and sound like a fart in the wind!" He turned away. "We'd throw it back into the rift, but we would not know where it would end it up. Jack has the keys to unlock the room."

"Why's that then?"

"Because he believes humanity and what is in that room, would be a lethal combination if it were let out!"

Sam glanced briefly at Owen. Like something I can mention!

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"Close to twenty five million pounds, Torchwood financed Carr-Bright before and during the war – what would that of got you?"

Jamie looked intently at the ledger book. Ianto glanced closer, appearing to recognise something.

Toshiko sipped a mug of coffee. "The best of everything, labs, material, testing facilities, and the best brains in the country!" Jamie listened intently. "Before the war, it was the British Empire and Nazi Germany that were neck and neck for the development of an atomic bomb – then kaput!" He exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "All work stopped, and it was moved to the United States as part of the Manhattan Project!"

Toshiko grimaced. "The Americans did have Oppenheim, Einstein, and the vast technical resources to accelerate the development!"

"This is just a theory – what if Torchwood with Carr-Bright as their lead, had their own Manhattan Project, one that would if it ended the war, keeps us as world power, and preserves the empire!"

"That's scary!" Toshiko commented.

"It's a possibility!" Jamie responded. "With all the paperwork and secrecy it has generated Toshiko, I think we're nearing closer to the truth!"

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"He's good Josh!" Jack observed the conversation between Jamie, and Toshiko. "A little arrogant, but that's drilled into all you military types!" Jack grinned. Armitage sighed. "Can I trade Owen for him?"

Armitage sighed. "Hell no!" Was Armitage's reply.

"You're looking at a future UNIT team leader, maybe overall Commander!"

"Feeling your age?"

"Yes - time has that habit of creeping up on you when you least expect it!"

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"I didn't know you're a film-buff Ianto!" Ianto blushed slightly at Gwen's remark. Especially when all eyes in the central hub were focused on him, holding a reel of 18mm film.

"I'm not that sort of film buff normally film-noir Gwen for the record, there is something I noticed about this particular uncategorised film reel!"

"Sloppy work Ianto, your standards are dropping!" Jack joked. Ianto patiently waited until the sniggers had died down. Jack nodded for the flustered Ianto to continue.

"For the antennary of equipment bought for Dr Carr-Bright's classified experiments in July 1941, there was a record number for 18mm film reels."

Ianto turned round the film reel to show the labelling to the table. "That matches this film reel!"

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_TEST SUBJECT 021 – 21st JULY 1941_

A black and white test card appeared for twenty seconds on the screen. Aside from the mechanical clicking of the ancient film projector, nobody said a word.

Elias Carr-Bright appeared on the screen, again very briefly talking to a number of technicans all in the white jackets, and tweed suits that seemed to be all the rage, outside somewhere, there was buildings, barracks presumably. Wartime fashion, Jack mused. The projector appeared to be hand-held by two people, and was man-handled to another area.

It was an open area, a parade ground. However in its centre was a semi-spherical wire-mesh like metallic cage. Inside were a number of. White rabbits. The camera panned out, to show four lightning rod type conductors, two each either side of the cage. What looked like miles upon miles of electrical wiring, all leading to mass of camping table, monitoring equipment, and electrical generators roughly one hundred meters away. The scientists and technicians calmly walked or jogged away.

The camera then focused solely on the cage. For a few moments the cage was there, the rabbits munching on the bedding of the cage. A timer on the film appeared on the bottom right hand corner. It started to countdown from five seconds. I suppose Torchwood didn't have to worry about PETA those days. Gwen watched.

Zero. There was a flash of light, and the cage disappeared, only a circular scorch mark smouldered where the cage was remained. Another timer appeared, counting upwards. It showed, one minute fifteen seconds. The camera remained focused on the spot. Owen half expected Elmer Fudd to appear saying I got those pesky wabbits, but nothing.

Two, three, four minutes passed. Five minutes.

At five minutes thirty five seconds, there was a longer less intense flash of light. Then the cage reappeared, rabbits happily hopping about if nothing had happened at all.

A black screen appeared, and the film cut out.

"Does somebody want to fill me in on what just happened?" Armitage looked around the conference room. "Anybody?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Torchwood: ****Medusa**

**Chapter 9**

Thursday Evening

"My grand-father was a magician. He could pull a bunny rabbit out of his hat, and then make it disappear!" Owen snapped his fingers. "Just like that!"

"My ex-girlfriends could do the same trick with my wallet on payday!" Travers remarked. There was chuckles from Sam and Gwen. "Amazingly the money never reappeared!"

"A form of cloaking device in the mid 20th Century!" Toshiko exclaimed excitedly. "Do you know what this could mean?"

The blank stares from her fellow team-members answered that question.

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Jack watched the conversation from his conference room window. Jamie, and Armitage were with him watching for an reaction. Humans never really cease to amaze me. Jack returned to them. Always want to go into places that they knew that could end their lives, not enhance them.

The answers to HMS Medusa's disappearance could only be answered by one course of action, and he knew it.

He sighed deeply.

"It looks like some form of cloaking device!" Jamie surmised, looking up at Jack. "Must be!"

"From my experience." Jack said sarcastically. "A cloaking device does not make a warship disappear then reappear decades later!"

"Maybe they got it wrong – very wrong!" Armitage interrupted.

"Whatever it is we can't determine what happened by observing from a distance!" Jamie exclaimed. "There is only one way that we can we out what happened!" Jack stared at Jamie coolly. You remind me of me, when I was younger, and hadn't yet experienced the real horrors of life.

"We go onto the Medusa, a small team!" Jamie leaned back. "Go to wherever the power plant or cloaking device is on the ship, and switch them both off."

"That sounds easy!" Jack replied sarcastically.

Jamie glanced very briefly at Jack. "We owe it to the families of the servicemen involved to wrap this whole thing up!"

Jack laughed. "How very noble!"

"You have a problem with that?" Jamie replied.

"You had me convinced with the recovery of the technology, not with the recovery of missing servicemen to their families!"

Jamie paused trying to think of a response. "It would look good on my record recovering a missing ship, and rectifying a torchwood screw-up!" His voice was cold, and testy in reply.

Jack grinned. The perfect team-leader.

"It's way too late tonight gentlemen!" Jack said, just audible enough from them both to hear. "Ok we go in tomorrow!"

Jamie grinned, Armitage nodded solemnly. "Let's just hope we don't become a permanent addition to the crew!"

"I'll make the arrangements!" Jamie said, getting up.

You've got your wish Lt Commander. Jack watched Jamie. "I guess I'll start making the plans!"

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"Okay listen up everybody!" Jack leaned against the railings over looking the hub. Six pairs of eyes looked up, at Jack. "You've all got the rest of the day off!" He said through clenched teeth, watching a concerned Armitage, and an expectant Jamie.

"Go home, do what ever it is you do, be back here bright and early tomorrow morning we've got a long day ahead of us!" He glanced at Jamie, before walking back into his office, the slamming of the door echoing in the hub's silence.

"What just happened there?" Owen looked at his watch, before turning to Gwen and Sam. Gwen winced, before she replied. "Jack's just been forced into doing something that he doesn't really want to do!"

"Such as?"

"I get really really seasick!" Was Gwen's reply.

"Oh crap!" Was Owen's reply.

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Breathe deeply, and slowly. Visualise where you want to hit it. Now!

The rapid fire of an automatic Browning 9mm Hi-Power pistol thundered within the Torchwood firing range. At the end, after the thundered had died down was twenty neatly displaced holes in the card-board mock-up of a Weevil. From fifty metres away, Jamie thinly smiled in satisfaction, as he placed the pistol onto the table next to him. He sensed he was being watched, and turned round removing his ear protectors.

"You could give Jack a run for his money!" Gwen smiled, as she walked over. "It's a good way to relieve stress."

"I prefer a drink myself Jamie." Gwen's smile was wary. "Where's everybody else?"

Gwen giggled. "Tosh goes back to her apartment, she has no life, Ianto I don't know where Ianto goes at night!"

"Armitage and Travers are die-hard whiskey drinkers, they'll find some bar in the city centre, and get thrown out at closing time!" Jamie laughed. "On occasion I've been called to bail out Travers!" He scratched the back of his head nervously. "That leaves?"

"Owen and Sam!" Gwen said despondently.

"You've noticed!" Jamie grinned conspiratorially. This was matched by a lop-sided grin from grin. "Christ, he moves fast doesn't he?"

"Fancy going out for a meal, it'll be my shout"

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A pile of books lay on Toshiko's dining room table, everything she could lay her hands on, on Quantum theory was checked out of Cardiff University's library, every scientific journal that merely mentioned this was requisitioned. A pot of strong thick black coffee was prepared, and against her better judgement a plate of fattening and sugary snacks. The black laptop in-front of her was switched on, a word document was created and was ready to be typed into. Toshiko looked at the first book, a dusty grey black bound journal entitled "Applied Quantum Theory Mechanics – An Synopsis", picked it up, and opened it. On way or not, she was determined to figure out how a simple cloaking device made a warship disappear for over seventy years.

Two bites of a yum-yum later, she was engrossed.

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Good!

Billis coldly watched them file out of their lair save two, the two that never left only on their errands. He didn't stand out within the early evening Christmas shopping crowds, he blended in amongst them, stalking silently like a predator coldly evaluating the forthcoming kill. One was off on her way home, to her own miserable little existence, under-valued, and unappreciated. Two were at a bar, telling each other "Those were the day war stories!" and getting drunk. That stupid girl Sam was with that vile creature, she would soon not be his problem, he sighed, her Grandfather would see her right.

That left, yes, the Naval Officer with the deep dark secret that was would be his undoing, and her. He watched Gwen smile, as Jamie held the door open to a smart city-centre bar. There was a brief smile from Jamie. Yes it does hurt, to live, to smile, and to maybe even feel love again for somebody.

What a shame all that was going to change tomorrow night.

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"I probably would right now be a Sergeant behind the custody desk, dealing with the drunks, the assaults, the cat-fights at closing time. Cardiff is a rough place at closing time!"

Jamie looked out over the bay. "Hmm – Glasgow isn't much better I'm afraid!" He turned to Gwen. "I would say worse, especially when Travers and I hit the West-end!"

Gwen leaned against the railings. "Where would you be if you weren't with UNIT?" Jamie leaned against the railings alongside Gwen, deep in thought. Hunting the bastard who ordered the bombing that put Pamela in a coma, and inflicting the slowest, nastiest most painful death upon him!

"Still in the navy, married, with kids!" He softly whispered, like he was miles away in a day-dream. Gwen smiled briefly for a moment. It's the alcohol, and the good food we've had, and the fact that I haven't had my mobile switched on all night. Snap out of it Gwen!

"Would you like some company for the rest of the night?" Gwen asked, casually. Jamie's left hand slowly, and nervously slipped into her right. He looked at her. "Yes I would Gwen."

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A pile of books lay on Toshiko's dining room table, everything she could lay her hands on, on Quantum theory was checked out of Cardiff University's library, every scientific journal that merely mentioned this was requisitioned. A pot of strong thick black coffee was prepared, and against her better judgement a plate of fattening and sugary snacks. The black laptop in-front of her was switched on, a word document was created and was ready to be typed into. Toshiko looked at the first book, a dusty grey black bound journal entitled "Applied Quantum Theory Mechanics – An Synopsis", picked it up, and opened it. On way or not, she was determined to figure out how a simple cloaking device made a warship disappear for over seventy years.

Two bites of a yum-yum later, she was engrossed.

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Jack stared at the canister containing the hand, it remained motionless and still. "I could really do with your help right now!" He asked out loud, uncertain whether others could hear him. The hub was deserted, save Ianto down some-where in the vaults doing whatever Ianto did.

He wanted somebody to answer him, but they never did, like those that he cared about through-out time ad space, they were lost to time and space.

He reached for the one hundred year old bottle of scotch that was beside his cabinet, and emptied it into a glass.

Here's to going where angels fear to tread.


	10. Chapter 10

**Torchwood: ****Medusa**

**Chapter 10**

Friday

The high pitched thud thud thud of the rotor blades cut through the night. Even the guards at the gates could hear it, several hundred metres away at the entrance of RAF Cardiff Bay air station. A solitary black painted Merlin helicopter was getting ready, its rear ramp lowered ready to receive it's passengers, navigation lights were switched off, nobody was to see this helicopter, even though plenty of people especially in Cardiff and along the coast could certainly hear it. The pilot, co-pilot, and loadmaster were veterans of hundreds of flights, danger, was a by-word for Special Forces' missions, which this was classified as. They patiently waited for their cargo, which was arriving.

A black SUV, closely followed by a dark blue Ford Transit van sped into the air base. Nine people were in them, six men, and three women.

Jack allowed Gwen to drive; she seemed to be pre-occupied with something or someone, and needed the distraction. A casual glance round, Owen sat in the back, in the middle was a uncomfortable looking Toshiko, then Sam. Yeah, that's it. He thought. Always Owen, always relationships, always something up with this team. He made a mental note to speak to her, after all this hullabaloo was sorted with HMS Medusa.

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Earlier that day…

"We find the machine or whatever it is that controlling the ship's cloaking device!" Jamie glanced briefly at Toshiko. "All going well we simply switch it off!"

"Where do we switch it off?" Owen leaned back awkwardly onto a chair. "A switch?"

Jamie nodded. "Or pull the plug!" Owen grimaced.

Everybody watched the holographic plan of the aircraft carrier. "Our other priority is to determine what exactly happened!" Armitage added.

"How do we do that?" Sam folded her arms, she was sitting uncomfortably close to Owen, too close for Armitage's liking. "It's very simple!" The holograph zoomed into the Island superstructure particularly the bridge.

"This is actually the easy part." Armitage said, the projector showed a 3D image from where they landed to where the bridge of the ship was. "Navy doctrine, the ship's log must be kept on or near the bridge in a safe."

"Er – a safe usually needs a lock to crack!" Owen raised his hand, in a childish way. Travers laughed out loud. "There is the tried and trusted method!"

"Which is?"

"A small piece of plastic explosive, with a twenty second prima-cord fuse!" Owen grimaced. "Simple, quick and noisy!"

"Are you describing Owen, or plastic explosives!" Jack strode in bold as brass, Gwen followed in behind a few seconds later. Owen folded his arms in a pretend huff. Jack grinned, as he took his place beside Armitage. "You're no fun Owen!"

Jamie coughed, to draw attention to himself, and to continue the briefing. "We'll give ourselves forty minutes on the carrier, a max of fifty to reach the minimum safe distance!"

"Safe distance?" Owen coughed. "What do you mean?"

Jamie smiled. "If we're within ten kilometres of the ship in a helicopter, when the tachyon pulse hits!" Jamie drew pleasure from Owen's discomfort. "The helicopter will crash into the sea, and we'll either drown or go for a swim!" Owen gritted his teeth, and breathed deeply. "I can't swim!"

Eight pairs of eyes looked at him. Owen avoided the glares, and the tell-tale sniggers that followed. "Yeah that's right, I can't swim." His body-language was uncomfortable.

"Lets make it forty minutes, and to be absolutely certain there's a rubber ring in the helicopter!"

The sniggers were louder this time.

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"Roger that Commander, we're twenty minutes out from contact!" The pilot spoke into his intercom. "It'll get a little bit bumpy over the channel!" Jamie patted the grinning pilot on the back, and gave him the thumbs up. The flight crew were UNIT veterans. "No Taliban this time!"

"There was this one time in the South Atlantic, we were on approach to the Ark Royal in a force five gale, when one of the engines shut down!" A pocket of turbulence rocked the Merlin, shaking it violently. The loadmaster gleefully explained. A row of white faces, desperately tried to stay focused, and keep the contents of their stomach down. Jack, Armitage, and Travers were enjoying it especially. Jack gripped tightly overhead hand railing, his long dark blue jacket swirling with the helicopters motion. He loved this.

"It was bloody awful, the entire floor was awash with puke, you could even tell what they had for dinner!"

Owen gulped, the taste of bile briefly rose and subsided in his throat.

"You hear me okay Ianto?" Jamie spoke louder into his mouth piece. "I hear you loud and clear!" Ianto's quiet voice replied, so clear it was almost like he was standing beside Jamie. Ianto was back at the RAF base, in the back of the Ford Transit, monitoring the sensor feeds from _Phillip_, and the spy satellite over head; the slightest change Ianto would tell them. Of course Jamie remembered, Ianto was sitting on terra-firma with a flask of coffee, and large Hawaiian pizza. He smiled, as he watched Gwen. Eyes closed, only opening her mouth to breathe ever so slightly.

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Jamie woke up sharply. There was a mobile ringing in the hotel room. In the darkness for a few moments he grappled to find the bedside lamp, he switched it on. It wasn't his mobile. Gwen lay beside him, stirring in her sleep. Jamie reached over her to the bed-side table, he grabbed it. Vibrating and lights on, Jamie read the name and number. Rhys. On cue the mobile stopped ringing.

"Any excuse to get on top!" A sleepy Gwen chided. Jamie smiled. "Your mobile was ringing!"

"Oh that old excuse!" Gwen giggled, as Jamie kissed her on the lips.

The mobile started to ring again. Jamie broke off the kiss, his enthusiasm gone. Gwen breathed deeply. He's pissed, had too many curries, and has lost his wallet, every fucking office Christmas party. Gwen turned over frustrated, she felt Jamie's arm cover her midriff, she slipped her hand into his, and squeezed it tightly. Gwen watched the name on the mobile, ringing until it stopped. She smiled as she felt Jamie kiss her neck.

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"Jamie – I've picked up a slight tachyon pulse lasting a micro-second!" Ianto's calm voice announced. On cue, Jamie turned round, and tapped the co-pilot, he turned round, Jamie made a hand signal. On cue, all electronics within the Merlin were switched off.

Jamie turned round. The cabin light was switched off. "Ianto call me when our target appears!"

"You got it Jamie!"

Seconds that felt like minutes passed by.

Jamie was joined up front by Jack. Both scanned the dark sleet blasted sky out of the cockpit windows. ""Any second now!" Jack said.

There was a flash, tens of miles away, lasting a couple of seconds. Jamie looked at Jack. Jack thinly smiled. "My sixth, seventh and eight senses are very tuned into the abnormal!"

"Does that include danger?"

"No!"

Jamie sighed as he switched on his comms device. "Ianto?"

"I'm looking right now at the ship Jamie!"

Jamie turned round. At the end of the cabin, next to the ramp, Jack was watching him, with a devil may care look, he had done this countless times before. Those leaps into danger, the unknown ahead of him.

The fear was in there too.

"Thirty seconds to landing!" The pilot announced into Jamie's intercom. On cue, the loadmaster moved to the back of the helicopter, where the ramp was. He clipped himself onto a lifeline.. "Lowering ramp!" He replied.

A wall of air hit the inside of the cabin, as the loading ramp was lowered. Outside of the helicopter was the pitch black of night, and below the rolling storm-boiling dark grey seas. Swirling clouds sprayed out from the sides, as the helicopter descended through the clouds rapidly. The loadmaster grinned. "Like Saltcoats in January!"

Only Jack laughed.

Owen looked out. Glad he was given a life-preserver, and inside a perfectly sound helicopter in perfect working order. Glad he wasn't carrying the black metallic briefcase type boxes the UNIT team were carrying, he kept forgetting to ask Sam what was in them. Sam was watching him too. She winked at him, in a bid to get his spirits up.

"Twenty seconds to landing!" Jamie's voice boomed. Jamie listened into what the pilot was saying to him. The Merlin started to bank slowly to the left. "We're doing a slow circle of the ship." Jamie announced.

Jack saw HMS Medusa from the helicopter's side windows, in the eerily green light of the cabin. The helicopter flew parallel to it at three hundred feet. The hull moved gently up and down in the swell of the storms, occasionally the spray of the waves was blasted over the bow.

"The flying dutchman, the Marie Celeste, and now HMS Medusa!" Jack proudly. "One for the history books Commander!" Jamie looked at him, then looked out. "That ship disappeared for a reason!" Jamie whispered. "Let's find out why!"

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"Feet dry!" The pilot announced. There was a metallic clang as the ramp was lowered and hit HMS Medusa's deck. Onto a pitching and heaving deck, in driving rain and a howling gale, the team slowly and carefully edged their way onto the ship. Jamie checked his watch.

Forty-five minutes and fifteen seconds to go.

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A gust of wind blew over the flight deck. Eight figures moved cautiously, eight powerful LED torches shone onto the island superstructure of the carrier. A light drizzle blanketed every-where. There was a metallic whine of engines powering up.

"Okay circle the ship, and stand-by for an immediate evac on my signal!" Shouted Armitage into his mouth-piece.

"I copy!" Replied the pilot. One hundred feet away the Merlin lifted off, first into a hover, then rising steadily away.

"Where are they going?" Queried Toshiko.

"It's okay, they're going to orbit the ship." Jamie shouted over the wind. "Standard procedure, the second Ianto or us pick up anything out of the ordinary they'll land, and get off asap!"

Jack whistled, drawing everybody's attention.

"Now lets split up – like we discussed. Team Alpha – Me, Gwen, Colonel and Sam – the hanger deck. Team bravo – Jamie, Owen, Tosh and Al – the bridge!" The teams started to form. "Hurry up people, we're not getting paid by the hour!"

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"Ever visited a haunted house as a kid?" Owen whispered to Toshiko, as he shone a torch-light up a dark flight of stairs. Jamie glanced at him, as he walked past Owen. The look was to put up or shut up. Travers stood ten feet behind them, down the corridor.

Toshiko thinly smiled following Jamie up the stairs, grabbing a railing as the ship rolled to starboard. "Are haunted houses – cold dark places full of decaying objects and cobwebs?" She confidently replied to Owen.

Owen followed her up the stairs. "Yeah!"

"Then why is this ship all clean?" Everybody moving on the stairs stopped abruptly, and took a very good look around.

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A hatched slammed open. It echoed across the cavernous hold of the flight deck. Torch-beams cut into the darkness, bouncing off objects that cast unrecognisable shadows. Jack strode onto the flight deck, Armitage followed closely behind, with Sam. Gwen was last, dropping a chemical flare onto the steel deck, marking their route.

Jack walked ten paces, he seemed transfixed, with something down at the end. In the darkness at the aft of the ship, something was calling out to him.

"Ianto!" He said into his mouthpiece. "Is it just me or it getting warm in here?"

There was a moment's silence. "The temperature is twenty-three degrees Celsius Jack!" There was another moments silence. "In fact-"

"Ow!" Gwen muttered, rubbing her un-gloved hand. "The bloody walls are hot!" Jack wryly smiled. "Thanks Ianto, Constable Cooper just confirmed your analysis!"

Gwen stared daggers at Jack, who grinned. Armitage sighed. "We better get a move-on, thirty-eight minutes."

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"Wow!" Was all that Toshiko could manage. Lightning in the distance flashed through the windows of the bridge. Aided by the torches of the team that bounced off the stations of the bridge, in the centre was the helmsman steering wheel. Jamie instinctively walked over to the Captain's station, a high back leather and steel chair directly in the centre of the deck. Travers flanked Jamie, Toshiko followed them. Owen stood bemused, then abruptly walked into the navigator's plotting board. A slide rule, pencil, and a tin cup clattered onto the floor. Jamie, Travers, and Toshiko sharply turned round in the direction of the noise. Three torch-lights blinded Owen. Travers and Jamie had their right hands on their pistol holsters.

"My fault!" Replied Owen privately cursing himself for being an idiot.

Jamie grinned.

"Well spotted Owen, scan that map that is on the plotting board will you?"

Jamie turned back round again. Toshiko saw the gesture that Owen made, and shook her head.

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"It's a Grumman Avenger – it's an anti submarine torpedo bombing aircraft!" Jack whispered with reverence. "Still as fresh as the day it rolled off it's Long Island production line!" Jack shone the torch along the ungainly looking plane's structure, along to the ball turret mounting twin machine guns.

"Do you two want to be left alone?" Gwen candidly remarked. Jack stroked the aircraft's folded wing. "It's the past Gwen, I can never go back to it." Or the future. Jack turned round, watching Armitage and Sam moving further along the hanger deck. His torch produced shadows of their figures. "This place is a tomb Gwen!" He whispered.

Gwen looked around her, wishing she was elsewhere, in somebody else's embrace.

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"Bust it open Chief!" Jamie patted the safe, in the Captain's quarters behind the bridge. Travers grinned, and crouched down going to work. Removing the safe cracker explosives from a utility belt.

"Hopefully Toshiko, this will give us a lot of answers." Jamie and Toshiko casually walked out of the Captain's quarters. A few moments later, Travers followed them, gently tapping Jamie on the shoulders.

Jamie smiled and put both hands over his ears. Toshiko, and Travers followed suit.

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A dull boom echoed throughout the ship.

"What was that?" A startled Sam jumped, and turned round. Her torchlight briefly blinding Gwen in the process. Jack watched her rapidly flick her eyes to remove the flash. "I guess they've found the cabin's safe." He casually remarked.

"Come on." Whispered Armitage. "Thirty minutes!"

"Aren't hanger decks big open spaces?" Gwen shone a torch from the deck to the ceiling.

"Experience tells me they are!" Jack joined alongside her. He looked at the scene before them, and took a deep breath. "Then why is there are a bulkhead here?"

"There's a hatch there!" Armitage shouted.

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"The next time you're gonna use flipping explosives, a little warning would be ok!"

Toshiko tried to stifle a snigger, and failed very badly. Owen paced up and down the bridge, shouting in great pain. "The ringing in your ears will subside after a wee while." Jamie casually remarked, whilst stuffing a thick beige book into an watertight clear plastic bag, beside him Travers was putting the maps and charts into another. "It's an unpleasant sensation the first time around!" He said.

Jamie turned away from Owen and Toshiko. "Team Alpha, this is Team Bravo. We've got what we've come here for, you need a hand over?"

The hissing of static answered Jamie.

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There was fading glowing blue light at the end of the sealed compartment. Jack squinted his eyes to filter out the glare, roughly the size of a small car he estimated. It had taken Armitage and him, five minutes to prise open the sealed hatch door which was over a foot thick. Touching it, he reckoned it was lead lined. Just like the deepest recesses of Torchwood-three. Very interesting, he looked up, there was lots of piping. He'd been in a nuclear-powered submarine's engine and reactor compartment, and a feeling of deja-vous was beginning to materialise from that.

A shadow on the wall a few feet ahead of him caught his eye.

"It's like a furnace down here." Gwen whispered as she walked past him. Jack held out his arm to block her, and turned to look at her.

"Your manners leave a lot to be desired Captain." Gwen coldly responded. Jack still looked ahead unflinching. Gwen turned and looked in the direction Jack was looking at. Her eyes went wide with horror.

A shape was melted into the wall, twisted blackened, and charred. The shape was of a man, his face was etched in pain and horror, mouth wide open in a silent terrible scream, and the way his body was contorted he was trying to escape from the wall which was trying to consume him. He was a sailor. His left hand was stretched out, as if he was reaching out for a salvation that never came.

Gwen recoiled in anguish, eyes tightly closed. Jack stepped forward blocking her from the horror. It was too late. The sound of something liquid hitting a steel surface was heard moments later. Sam rushed over to help her. Armitage stood transfixed with the horrific sight.

"Team Bravo!" Jack whispered into his mouth-mike.

"Yes – where have you guys been?" An annoyed Jamie replied.

"Fighter Command!"

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"Fighter Command!"

Jamie replied, hand signalling Travers. Toshiko and Owen heard it too. Both on cue, drew their hand-guns. Toshiko with her Walther, and Owen, a Sig-Sauer P226. There was a clatter of metal locked being opened, and a few moments later a metallic clack of a weapon being cocked. They watched Travers as he turned round, he cradled a stub-nosed G36 assault rifle, with a laser dot sight that flashed in the darkness. Behind them, there was a similar sound, Jamie held his assault rifle. There was menace in his eyes.

"Traver's get the evidence into the back pack, we're moving out."

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"My Colonel what a big weapon you've got!" Jack nervously whispered, as he and Armitage walked towards the melted man shape. Jack's Webley revolver was outstretched in front, Armitage coolly cradled the assault rifle, laser dot sight targeted on the shape. "He's dead!" Armitage replied, lowering his rifle. Gwen breathed deeply, her nerves coming back to her. Jack turned round. Two white sad eyes stared past him. "I'm sorry!" She said.

"Hey it's okay!" Jack softly replied.

"What do we do?" Sam asked, her dainty figure cradling an assault rifle, to Jack, just did not work well with him. Sigourney Weaver she wasn't. But then again in this environment, who knew what she was capable of.

"We go on!" Armitage slowly walked further down the corridor. "Nobody touch nothing!"

Jack looked at his watch. Twenty-one minutes. An element of doubt started to take hold in his mind. Just what in earth have we gotten into.

They all walked slowly on.

"Oh god!" Sam whispered. Shining a torch up into the ceiling. Jack, then Armitage looked up, Gwen did not. Melted into the ceiling, spread-eagled was a form of a human, just the back of him was showing. He was wearing a white lab technician's coat, that hung down. Hands were buried into the ceiling. "God was not here." Jack answered.


	11. Chapter 11

**Torchwood: ****Medusa**

**Chapter 11**

Friday

Jamie whistled, a soft respectful whistle, and stood there looking at something that was physically impossible. Imbedded into the hatchway was a grotesque figure of a Royal Navy Officer, face, and hands stretched out from the hatchway, along with half of his body. The expression on his face was one of surprise.

Owen stepped between Jamie and Travers, holding the Bekaran scanner at arms' length. The three of them heard rapid breathing from behind them. Jamie, and Travers glanced round. The usually pale Toshiko, was even paler. Her eyes were wide, with horror.

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"Ianto – are you getting all this?" Jamie's voice was calm. Ianto watched in fascination, as the video camera feeds from the eight team members showed varying ghastly images.

"Yes!" He placed his mug of coffee onto a makeshift table.

"Is there are anything out of the ordinary?"

Ianto shook his head. "All feeds show everything is okay, you have twenty-nine minutes remaining!"

"Let me know when it hits fifteen!"

Ianto nodded, as the wind and the rain buffeted the van. "Will do."

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"We'll take a detour round this chap!" Travers whispered to Toshiko. "Stay close to me!" Toshiko nodded, in compliance.

"Anything?" Jamie said to Owen, who still scanned the Royal Navy Officer. "DNA is human, I'd like to take a sample!"

Owen's look was, I'm going to take one regardless of how you reply. Jamie stared at Owen, then the body. "Okay – be quick!"

Owen grunted, and removed another alien looking device from his jacket pocket.

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"What the hell!"

At the end of the corridor was a gangway that overlooked where the engine room and its boilers should be. Instead, there was something else, that was glowing.

It was large cylindrical shaped object, ten feet high, surrounded by control panels of nineteen forties vintage. At four compass points, North, South, East and West, where large metallic rods embedded into the decking, that was twenty feet high. They held above the cylinder a large hemisphere of metallic wire mesh. Surrounding this device were more control panels, cathode and vacuum ray tubes, and more piping. Mixed in, were more hideously blackened and deformed shapes of men.

Jack leaned on the hand railings. This looks familiar, he remarked to himself. Footsteps stomping down metallic stairs, meant Armitage, then Sam were going in for a further look. Gwen stood in the corridor. Jack could see the whites of her eyes, in the afterglow, pleading with him not to go further. Where were Jamie and Toshiko, the two technical experts?

"Team Bravo – where the hell are you?" Jack's booming voice echoed throughout the ship, forgetting he was speaking into a microphone.

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"This is unreal!" Owen remarked. Team Bravo walked single file down the middle of the aircraft carrier's mess deck. It was like some grotesque Dark Age painting's depiction of hell. Figures of sailors were merged into tables, walls, and the ceiling. Toshiko glanced round, and caught sight of a face and out-stretched hand protruding from a metallic canteen server. Dozens of men, faces etched in agony and terror. Plates, food and cutlery scattered all over the deck, looking as fresh as it was when it fell. In the eerie darkness, the laser-dot targeting sights of Jamie and Travers's assault rifles scanned left and right, up and down looking for the threat that horribly ended the lives' of these men.

"I hear you Team Alpha." Jamie calmly replied to Jack's barked order. "We've found more of the ship's company!"

He couldn't make out what Jack said in reply. "We're heading over your way, see you in five minutes."

Something crunched underneath Toshiko's foot. She willed herself not to look down. However, she did. Her foot had stood into the desiccated face of a sailor protruding from the floor. She screamed.

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"Jamie what the hell is happening?" Jack demanded jogging running down the stairs. Armitage and Sam were already at the consoles surrounding the device, Sam was taking pictures of it with the digital camera, that was being fed into the torchwood mainframe via a microwave link. Gwen still remained where she was, picking up the bad vibes that she was beginning to get very adept at. If she ever thought of a career change, she'd be very good on _UK's_ _Most Haunted_.

The trouble being, this ship was full of horrible, nasty evil vibes. That even he was beginning to feel, as he looked around.

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"Don't worry, don't worry it's okay!" Travers had an arm wrapped around Toshiko. Jamie crouched down, examining the remains of the sailor's face. Owen watched, silently, almost looking bored with the whole thing. Jamie tried to remove the sailor's dog tag from around the sailor's neck. However the tag part was imbedded within the steel deck, he muttered a silent curse before standing up.

"Come on, Jack's waiting on us!"

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The wind rattled outside of the van, Ianto watched the time counter for the umpteenth time within the last few minutes, then watched the ten screens, and the monitors from the spy satellites and drones keeping watch on the ship.

The area of the base where the van was parked was deserted, the guards on stag, where gone, in the mess no doubt for something hot and edible out of the howling wind and the cold rain. Manoeuvring between the buildings within the shadows a figure walked very quietly and discreetly, jacket buttoned up against the wind and the rain. Billis saw the light on in the rear of the van. The distinctive black SUV sat parked, tens of metres away; he didn't need to bother with that.

There was a gentle tap tap on the van's doors. A semi-startled Ianto turned round in his seat. Jamie had informed him that the guards were told not to disturb him whilst in the van. There was another tap tap on the door. Ianto reached over, and opened the door from the inside.

The last thing Ianto remembered was two hands grabbing him by the wrists and pulling him from the van.

Billis thinly smiled, at the unconscious Ianto on the ground before him. He calmly checked his watch. Eight minutes to go.

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"Okay!" Armitage stood back, and looked up in awe at the machinery. He grinned at Sam, who smiled back before resuming her photographing of the device. "This is awesome!" He looked over the dials and consoles that were of 1940's era. "Just what are we looking at?"

"Something that a lot of men died for, and to keep a secret!" Jack waved a hand slowly over what he thought was the main operating panel. The design is almost a copy, exchange the 1940's retro styling for ultra-chic time-lord technology and it wouldn't be out of place. Carr-Bright, you were almost a genius. You didn't build a cloaking device, you built a proto-type time machine!

Jack's eyes went wide with the thought, almost a way home, a little voice whispered.

"Possibly a cloaking device Colonel. A prototype cloaking device!" Jack grinned. "Now lets find the off switch!" He turned round and looked up. Gwen still hadn't budged from that spot.

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"Shite!"

Travers voice sounded in disgust, another passageway blocked. This way by grotesque figures sprawled across a hatchway the locking mechanism protruding right through him. Jamie looked at an electric plan of the ship on his PDA. The grim assessment was the only way to get to the engine room was back the way they came, and around.

"Okay – we're screwed." He activated his microphone. "Team Alpha – we're not going to make it in time to you, I recommend we get back to the rendezvous asap!"

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"We've only just got here Team Bravo – we can switch it off now!" Jack practically shouted down the microphone. "Besides we've got a bit of time left!"

"By the time we get there we'll have to leave." Jamie calmly spoke back. "I'm calling in the helicopter now!"

Jack looked up. Gwen appeared miraculously in front of him, the little girl lost look in her eyes. The eyes wide with a plea.

"Jack I think we should leave right now!"

On cue, things started to completely go to hell, as the light briefly flickered on and off for a moment.

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Jamie looked up, then at his watch then PDA. The watch had stopped, and the PDA was reconfiguring itself.

"Ianto god damn it are you there?" The thunder of four sets of footsteps echoed down the dark corridors. Travers was out in front, leading Owen, then Toshiko with Jamie bringing up the rear of the pack. "Come on Ianto where the hell are you – that was a tachyon pulse wasn't it?"

The silence from the other end was deafening. God damn it. Jamie cursed. "Navy Merlin this is Team Bravo, we need an immediate evac now!"

There was an moment's silence. "Copy team bravo, our ETA is thee minutes!"

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"Okay did somebody just touch something?" Jack demanded looking at Armitage then Sam. Both rapidly shook their heads in response.

The silence that endured for a few moments allowed them all to hear it. A low mechanic whining like noise. Four sets of eyes and ears turned in its direction. The low just audible pulse noise emanated from the central cylinder shape. It started to glow. Sam and Armitage raised their machine guns in a futile gesture.

"Drop everything – move!" Screamed Jack. Gwen started to sprint up the stairs, closely followed by Jack, he didn't care if Armitage and Sam where following.

A klaxon started to sound all around them, a hideous noise. To Gwen it was the sound of a thousand black and white war movies that she endured with Rhys on a wet Sunday afternoon. To Jack, it was the sound that something was about to happen.

A voice sounded over the ship's tannoy system.

"Cloaking shield procedure will be initiated in two minutes, all teams to proceed to their designated stations!" A crisp precise English accent boomed out. On cue, a mechanical winch started to bring down the watertight doors that were the only entrance to the chamber. Gwen who was the closest at the top of the stairs watched as she sprinted along the gang way in desperation. Within three seconds, an echoing boom announced their sealing. The klaxon still sounded.

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The scene on the carrier's flight deck was like the third canto of _Dante's Inferno_. The blackness, the howling bitter winds, the storm tossed and merciless seas, the spray and cold rain that soaked them.

Team bravo was out of breath, but they had gotten there well within time. A relieved Travers grinned at Jamie as they both watched the Merlin bank low over the carrier.

"Team Alpha were are you?" Jamie shouted over the radio. "Come in over!"

Jack's reply was not what they wanted to hear, and the Merlin steadied itself into a hover two hundred feet above the pitching carrier's deck.

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"We're trapped!" Jack grimly announced. A despairing Gwen looked at him. "How?" Jamie replied back, the wind buffeting his voice and the microphone.

"The machine is on automatic, a pre-set or something!" Jack leaned calmly against the railings. Armitage started to bang his arms against the doors, in a futile male gesture, that Jack would find amusing if the situation wasn't so life threatening.

"Cloaking shield procedure will be initiated in one minute. All teams to proceed to their designated stations!"

"Get that?" Jack retorted.

"We all heard it!" Jamie replied.

"Get off the ship now!"

"The helicopter –" Toshiko screamed in the background.

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It was as surreal as it was quick. Owen thought. The helicopter's blades slowly stopped rotating, as did the tail-rotor. Then in a fluke of physics, bolts of white bluish lightning arched upwards from the deck of the aircraft carrier. For a moment, the helicopter hung clearly in the black sky.

In a searing white hot flash it exploded directly above them. Wreckage and burning fuel cascaded down towards them

The last thing Owen remembered was Travers grabbing him and throwing him off the flight deck. Jamie and Toshiko both ran the opposite way and leaped off the ship into night.

Owen suddenly then remembered, he couldn't swim.

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A hiss of static answered Jack. The three individuals around him, all drew their own conclusions about what had just happened. Jack's eyes remained transfixed on the now pulsing and glowing central cylinder. Control panels and dials were starting to go hay-wire. Jack turned to Gwen, who stood beside him. The klaxon sounded again, this time more ominously

"Ten seconds!"

He slipped his hand into her own trembling hands.

"I guess this it the end." Her voice was a breathless whisper, she paused. "My head is starting to hurt!" Jack closed his eyes. His head was starting to hurt.

"Five seconds!"

The glowing and pulsing was more rapid now. He closed his eyes. Then the mother of all head-aches hit him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Torchwood: ****Medusa**

**Chapter 12**

Delete before putting online – whole chapter at Kiel Harbour

Kiel Military Harbour

December 1943

Air raid sirens sounded in the distance. It was nightfall. What sounded like trucks roared past, there were shouts in German. A black Mercedes staff car escorted by a single Kubelwagon and two motor-cycles sped past the SS guards on duty at the front gate guard house. A solitary black uniformed man sat in the back. Blonde haired, blue eyed SS General Dr Hans Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler, head of the SS weapons' research establishment, sat without any emotion, a coded telegraph sent to him a few hours earlier, has caused him to cancel a meeting with his Commanding Officer, a one Henrich Himmler. However the implications of the message meant that in a few weeks, Nazi Germany would be celebrating victory in a war that was rapidly going from bad to worse on all three fronts.

The car stopped outside a vast submarine pen, designed by himself, and constructed using slave labor in record time. Kammler walked out, he hated formally, he was a man of action and power. He strode through the entrance barely acknowledging the salute of officers and men. Operation Destiny was starting to come together.

Another vast wrought iron door opened before him.

A vast dry dock spread out before his very eyes. Hundreds of SS soldiers, technicians, engineers and scientists swarmed all around HMS Medusa. The lighting in the vast darkened pen, made her look menacing like a leviathan of a long forgotten Aryan Legend. How apt that a weapon designed by the allies, was going to be used against them.

She had been found adrift in the Baltic, nine days ago, and brought here under strict security conditions. Elite storm-troopers searched the ship, finding only hideous corpses, wondrous machinery, and one survivor. Dr Elias Carr-Bright.

Carr-Bright sat in a workshop with a myriad of scientific instruments, under the careful gaze of four armed guards, one curt nod of the head from Kammler, and they silently vacated the room. Kammler removed his uniform's cap and placed it on the table beside Carr-Bright, his hair was rapidly thinning, his skin wrinkled, affected by the experiment, but as Kammler had learned, his intelligence has not dulled. Carr-Bright merely glanced, before going back to work.

"The rumours must be true then. Last night's experiment did bring back something interesting!" Carr-Bright casually remarked. "Our mutual friend was correct!"

"Yes" Kammler hissed. "Do I detect something is not to your exact standards!" Carr-Bright wrote something into a notebook. If this had been anyone else, Kammler would have somebody summarily execute this man for insolence. The truth was, Kammler needed Carr-Bright.

"Who are our prisoners?"

"A serving RAF officer, and a female attached to the mythical organisation you called torchwood." Carr-Bright stopped his calculation, he had pressed his pen too hard, and it had snapped. Kammler thinly smiled, a nerve had been hit. "Plus a Negro British Army Officer, and a Doctor, who is my Grand-daughter!" Kammler placed a silver cigarette box onto the table. The inscription on it was a German translation for a latin saying. Tempus Fugit. Time Flies.

Carr-Bright turned round, his piercing grey eyes, stared directly into Kammler's own.

"Are you a believer now Herr General?"

"We did not get the other people Mr Billis specified!"

"The experiment was a complete success, the temporal displacement device worked. You now have a weapon beyond the realms of your own esteemed scientists!" Carr-Bright went back to work. "I suggest you time your next strike to where and when it will have the most impact!"

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The uniform seemed perfect, to Flight Lieutenant Sam Makler, it was the shroud of destiny. From the second she had been isolated from Jack, Lt Colonel Armitage, and that insipid Gwen, everything her parents had instructed her to say and to act came into being.

The full length mirror showed her in the uniform of an SS Lieutenant. Her hair was tied back into the ponytail dictated too by her mother. She smiled, she had completed her mission. Her heart skipped a beat, when she saw the figure in the same black uniform behind her, he was leaning against the dresser in her quarters. Her grand-father. Kammler nodded without emotion.

"You have done well my Grand-daughter, my daughter, your mother has raised you well!" Kammler's stood up. "Thank you!" Sam paused. Kammler thinly smiled. "It is okay to feel confused – please call me Herr General for the time being, I am still not comfortable with the whole Grand-papa persona!" Kammler extended his right hand. "Join me for some dinner, it is an opportunity to tell me everything about yourself, and most of all tell me everything about Torchwood!"

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I should be watching _The Great Escape_ this Christmas with Rhys snoring on the couch beside me, not be bloody in it!

Gwen sat against a cold stone wall, in a eight feet by eight feet cell, the only light was coming from the corridor outside, where a guard regularly walked past, and occasionally peered in. Or in a nice warm bed with Jamie.

A few hours ago, she has been blind-folded, and then flung into this cell. Everything bar the clothes that she wore, had been taken, her mobile, her jewellery, rings, her ID and her pistol. God knows what they were already making of them.

She wondered how Jack was coping.

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The light shone brightly into Jack's eyes, he tried to turn away, however two pairs of hands gripped the sides of his head, he winced as the light burned deeper into his retinas. There were other people within the cell, how many he couldn't tell, who they were, he couldn't tell.

In the room next to his, he could hear them working over Armitage. His screams did not stop.

"Jack Harkness, Royal Canadian Air Force, Captain, service number-" He didn't finish, a blow to the chest knocked the wind out of him.

"Tell us everything about Torchwood, Captain Harkness!" Accented English shouted.

Jack panted for breath.

"It's a country house in North Scotland, surrounded by lots of men in skirts, that I think you'll like"

Another blow hammered into his chest, which knocked out the air out of him. He gasped in pain, definitely a rib has been busted, he thought, the pain kept him focused.

"What were you doing on HMS Medusa?"

"On a cruise!"

Jack braced himself for another blow which came moments later.

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"The war is not going well Lieutenant!" Kammler poured a glass of schnapps for himself and another for Sam. "Our counter-offensive at Kursk which the Furher has placed all our hopes on, has failed. Communist armies are amassing from the Baltic to the Black sea, in the South, the allied armies are making slow and steady process in Italy." Kammler paused, and stared at Samantha. "We know they are preparing for the invasion of Western Europe, our sources say the spring of next year – HMS Medusa was to be key to this invasion!"

Sam's eyes widened. "Dr Carr-Bright survived the experiment?"

Kammler nodded. "He has been very cooperative with HMS Medusa, he is truly a genius!" Kammler sipped from his glass before continuing. "A Ship that can develop an invisibility shield for miles around it, an astonishing idea, worthy of greatness!"

"I know the exact date of the future invasion Herr General!" Sam said quietly. "I will make you a hero of the Reich!" Kammler smiled a predatory smile. "The Wermacht will be the heroes if they stop the invasion!" Sam laid down her glass onto the table. "You mistake me Herr General, I know the location of weaponry that will ensure the survival of the Reich, with the destruction of the Allies and the Communists. You will be the hero!" Kammler's predatory look was matched by that of Sam's.

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Gwen stood up, as the sound of the locks on the cell door being unbolted. She mentally braced herself for what was about to happen. The door was kicked opened, and there was a loud bang as the steel door hit the concrete walls. An armed SS guard shone a torch in, Gwen flinched as it blinded her. He shouted something in guttural German, two more guards dragged a dishevelled figure, to the doorway before throwing it into the cell. Gwen looked down, at the broken figure of Jack on the floor, then as quickly as they came, the door was slammed shut.

"Mind me to complain to the management when we get out!" Gwen cradled the bruised and battered face of Jack. He coughed, his face in agony as it did.

"I think I have a few broken ribs, and internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity!" Jack coughed. "That was a good torture, and I must say I've had my share of them!"

"Bastards!" Gwen muttered quietly. She watched a guard peering into the cell. "They're just the foot-soldiers!" Jack whispered. "Every time and era has them, only obeying the order from a superior!" He paused. "We're alive because we're needed, we have something that they want, they need!"

"You need a doctor!" You're right there Jack thought, though not of the medical kind.

Jack looked up. "You need to be strong Gwen, you're the only one!"

"Why what's going to happen?" Jack weakly smiled. "Only you have seen what I am capable of doing." A weak voice whispered, Gwen felt the grip on her hands weaken, and finally loosen. Jack winked. "This is one come-back that won't be on pay-per-view!" His last breath lasted for what seemed like an eternity.

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"Good-bye Herr Colonel, you are no use to the Reich!"

A broken and bloody Armitage stared into the muzzle of a Luger aimed just inches from his face.

A single pistol shot rang out.

Moments later an alarm rang out.

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The SS Doctor stared at Jack's corpse, then at Kammler. Kammler silently nodded, then breathed deeply. "Our interrogation was standard procedure Herr General!" The SS Staff Sergeant whispered in frightened tones. Kammler was deep in thought. He turned to the Captain of the guards beside him. Piercing blue eyes met the Captains'. "Execute this man!" Kammler said sternly turning to him. The Staff Sergeant looked at Kammler in horror, as soldiers grabbed him. "Sergeant you're lucky it'll be by firing squad." Kammler turned away. "Dispose of him in the same grave as that negro officer." Kammler walked a few steps.

"Shall we not do an autopsy Herr General?" The Doctor asked. Kammler stopped and shook his head. "No – what will there be to learn!" The Doctor motioned for two medical orderlies to come forward, and wheel away a sheet covered Jack. "Take this one to the waste incinerator!" Kammler stared at a tear stained Gwen, a dozen feet away. "He is medical waste nothing more!"

Gwen stared at Kammler. Kammler noted the defiance in her eyes. You would like to kill me, good, the hate will keep you alive a little longer for to meet my needs.

"I want her under total observation, she is not to be harmed." Soldiers grabbed Gwen. "She is the only one who knows the layout and security of the Torchwood base in twenty-first century Cardiff!"

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"I'm seeing that cute little nurse tomorrow in Kiel!" A private lit his cigarette, as he and a fellow soldier wheeled a trolley with a corpse on it, into where there was an waste incinerator. The heat was welcome, right now they would usually be on guard duty at the gates on a cold winter's night.

"Which one was that?" His comrade stopped the trolley at the chute. "This one!" The second guard removed a picture from his pocket. The first guard walked over to have a look, his eyes lit up. "Oh yes her, the red-head, very nice." They both nodded in satisfaction. "What's her name?"

"Fred!" Jack said from behind them both of the guards.

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Carr-Bright was not accustomed to being spoken this way. He contained his anger. "Weapons to defeat the Allies and the Communists – you are most mistaken Herr General!" Kammler thinly smiled, and folded his arms. Sam stood several feet behind him, with several soldiers.

"Einstein and Oppenheimer are idiots, these weapons are weapons of theory!" Kammler turned to Sam. "Herr Doctor, they successfully built them and used them in the Pacific, as the means to end the war!" Sam walked several steps towards Carr-Bright. "There are four of them in the vaults deep within Torch-wood!"

"Impossible!"

"I have seen them with my own eyes Herr Doctor!" Kammler motioned to the soldiers. "You are coming with us to the future Herr Doctor. Back to the future as one might say"

The soldiers took positions around Carr-Bright. On cue, they armed had armed their machine-guns.

"We will go with two companies of elite SS-Kommando, one hundred and twenty men, and a dozen specialist technicians with the sole survivor of Torchwood, we have several boats already secured within the carrier, the time-matrix will be stable for one and a half hours, and on the second night, we will return to the carrier, our window of return will be the same, I anticipate very little opposition."

"The weapons themselves are very light. We take the Torchwood base, and secure it for several hours, and then to coin an American term, we make our getaway!" Sam added. Kammler lit a cigarette. "You are coming along to ensure the safe operation of the temporal displacement device!"

Carr-Bright looked around. A dozen soldiers with machine guns, gave him very little in the way of an option to refuse.

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"Crap!" Jack tried to button the uniform's jacket. A little tight across the chest, as he stretched the buttons and fastened them. Never mind, he thought dragging the second of the two unconscious soldiers into the corner of the storeroom, buried beneath a pile of blankets, clothes and waste materials they wouldn't be discovered for a few hours. Jack caught his reflection in the glass of a doorway. He adjusted the soldiers' cap across his head, pulling it down across his eyes. He checked the Luger pistol in its holster. Jack drew a deep breath before walking out of the incinerator room.

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HMS Medusa stood silently in the dry dock. Formed rigidly in four lines of thirty men each were the heavily armed, black uniformed clad Kommando. Kammler similarily dressed walked along the lines, inspecting each hand-picked man personally. Fellow officers supervised the loading of the ship, ordinary soldiers carried crates two at a time up the gangway into the bowels of the carrier.

Kammler had given strict instructions for the base to maintain radio silence for the duration of the Operation, he checked his watch, which was about to begin in forty-five minutes.

Carr-Bright nervously fidgeted in the control room of the temporal displacement device. Grey boiler suited technicians rapidly carried out his orders. He stared into the hollowed out face of a victim of the first almost successful experiment. He then turned around to watch, her, the Torchwood survivor from the future being handcuffed to a railing.

"My dear do Torchwood still take everything, and give nothing in return?" Carr-Bright said softly from across the control room. Gwen stared at him, not replying.

Carr-Bright smiled thinly.

"Too bad – we are going to take everything!"


End file.
